


on found families and starting wars

by ghostangel



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Big Bang 2020, Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Don't Have to Know Sense8 Canon, Found Family, M/M, POV Alternating, canon-typical triggers, specific trigger warnings on each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:35:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26337304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostangel/pseuds/ghostangel
Summary: It all started with a dream that wasn't a dream.A group of eight people around the world suddenly find themselves linked mentally, and must find a way to survive being hunted by those who see them as a threat to the world's order.
Relationships: there are mentions of relationships but the work is not focused on that
Comments: 24
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've wanted to write this AU for almost three years now and I finally did. You can't imagine how excited I am to finally post the first chapter! I really hope you enjoy it <3 Chapters will go up every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday! 
> 
> Now, the biggest thank you goes to [@wishbonetea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishbonetea/pseuds/wishbonetea), for correcting all my mistakes and helping me with this monster of a fic. Really, thank you. Art made by [@aftgfanart](https://aftgfanart.tumblr.com/) on tumblr will appear on chapter three so keep an eye out for that!
> 
> The trigger warnings for chapter one are: guns, drugs, police, referred past murder, implied suicide.

**PART ONE -** on found families...

Matt was standing in a huge abandoned building. It looked a lot like a church. Something was telling him he’d been in that church a million times, a voice deep in his heart, whispering memories that didn’t belong to him. If he concentrated enough he could hear the sweet voices of the choir being carried by the wind, see the colours of the stained glasses dancing on the stone walls, smell the incense.

Matt had never been in this church, but he somehow knew everything about it. He knew that its last pastor was called Paul Baker, that the queen had once visited it and it closed after an earthquake damaged its fundations. He slowly made his way towards the middle of it. Broken beer bottles, pieces of clothes, old takeaway packages and syringes were scattered all over the cracked marble floor.

In the middle of the church there was a mattress, dirty and stained, and on the mattress, there layed a man. Matt somehow knew he was exactly 42, that heroin was running through his veins and that he was both terrified and in extreme pain. 

“Sir?” he asked, slowly moving closer to him. “Do you need help?”

He reached for his pocket and noticed he was wearing his uniform. His phone was nowhere to be found, same as his gun. He watched the man slowly pull himself up. He looked straight at Matt and Matt could feel the pain growing.

“I see you,” the man whispered, his voice shaky, and Matt felt chills run down his body.

For a moment he could see them too. Seven people appeared, their bodies flickering, their frames weak. They looked more like ghosts than humans. Matt felt his heartbeat speed up, he could feel his pulse all over his body, and he could feel the pain of the man as if it was his own. He fell to his knees and Matt felt the air being knocked out of his lungs. Just as suddenly as the pain came, it vanished, leaving him kneeling, gasping for air.

He was alone with the man again. The ghosts were gone, but somehow he still felt their presence — just like when he was trying to remember something and the thought of it lingered on the back of his brain all day. He noticed the man’s arms were tattooed. Dark flames were climbing up his forearms, dancing under the moonlight.

“Who are you?” he asked, but the man didn’t seem to have heard him. Instead he reached for a small metallic box that was lying next to the mattress. Matt watched him take some kind of pill and a gun out.

He looked at Matt again, but this time his eyes were wide, full of fear. He quickly swallowed the pill. Matt noticed his hands were shaking.

“It’s already too late,” he whispered.

Matt got up. “Too late for what?” he asked and quickly added, “Sir, I want you to put down your weapon,” as if he just remembered who he was. Sometimes he still found himself unable to instinctively act as a police officer, even after two years of training.

But the man didn’t seem to hear his voice anymore. The church was slowly dissolving around him, the man was flickering in and out of his sight. He saw someone enter the building accompanied by three armed soldiers. His hair was ginger, though greying a little. Matt instinctively reached for his gun again, forgetting it wasn’t there.

“Come on, David,” the man said, his voice ice cold. “We both know you will not shoot me.”

Matt only then noticed that the man on the mattress — David — was pointing at the other man with his gun. Their voices were growing more and more distant.

“And we both know,” David started, “that you won’t shoot me either, _Nathan_.” A sharp laugh escaped his mouth. He slowly moved his hand and was now pointing at himself, the barrel of the gun steadily held against his own temple. “But the truth is I wasn’t planning on shooting you in the first place.”

“No!” Matt screamed, just before darkness swallowed everything around him.

Matt could feel something was wrong with his face. Both of his hands came up and touched his dark eyes, his flat nose and his strong jaw. Everything looked exactly the same, everything felt exactly the same. It all was normal. But at the same time, it _wasn’t_. He felt like he was looking at a distorted image of himself, like someone tried to draw his portrait and got everything right, except one or two small details.

It was an unsettling feeling. Almost as if you couldn’t recognise your own self, but at the same time it felt like evolving. When he was little, he used to spend hours in front of mirrors, waiting to become a man. It almost felt like growing. Not growing old, growing into something different. He couldn’t decide if he liked it or not.

He was late to work. He was always late to work. He didn’t like his uniform — from day one he thought he looked like a moving traffic cone, with his blindingly yellow hi-vis jacket and his stupid hat. Sometimes Matt wondered why he even chose this job and then he remembered his mother being murdered on a dark alley and the police never catching the killers. She was a boxer and she was a bit too proud for her own good. Matt still wasn’t sure what had happened but she probably refused to throw a match or won a fight against the wrong person. 

No matter how much money or clues they had, the police never found out who did it. He just wanted to be the guy who would catch the killers. Every cop story somehow had the same beginning. Someone dying and someone wanting to be the hero. Matt was a cliche, but he soon realized heroes don’t exist and that the world was far too complex and cruel. But he stayed in the force; it was stupid, but he still hoped he would be able to do something good one day. 

With a cup of coffee in his hand, he was patrolling a neighborhood, one he had never been to before. The car was moving slowly and his partner wouldn’t stop talking about a case he solved last year. Matt loved Jeremy, he really did, but he had woken up with a nasty headache and this story was making it worse.

“Do you remember that guy who used to be in our math class?” Jeremy abruptly asked. “Last year of high school. The tall one, with the french accent and the big eyes.”

Matt, of course, remembered him, because Jeremy wouldn’t shut up back then; a strange boy, adopted by a family but only stayed in Bristol for a year before going back to New York. He was about to say as much, when something outside the window caught his eye.

They were passing by a church. It looked very old; parts of the stone walls had fallen off, the lawn in front of it was filled with vines and all the windows were broken.

“Stop the car,” he said to Jeremy, not tearing his eyes away from the building.

Jeremy did. “Did you see something?” he asked, his voice filled with confusion.

Matt, as if he hadn’t heard him, opened the door and got out of the car. He started walking towards the entrance. Jeremy followed him inside, swearing under his breath.

“What are we doing here?” he tried, but the other man kept walking, as if he was enchanted. “I don’t think this building is very safe,” he tried again.

The church was huge on the inside. There were ruins, pieces of the roof, glasses and rubbish scattered all over the floor. In the middle of it there was a filthy mattress. Matt stopped in front of it and kneeled down.

“He was here,” he whispered, under his breath. His fingertips were gently touching the dirty mattress, travelling across it, drawing a strange map.

“ _Who_ was here?” Jeremy asked confused.

“David,” Matt replied.

Jeremy could almost hear the cogs on Matt’s brain shift and turn. He watched Matt slowly stand up again. Now they were both looking straight into each other’s eyes.

“Someone was shot here,” he said, his voice steady and clear. “And we need to find out why.”

Matt couldn’t shake off the awful coldness of the church. He caught himself thinking that he wouldn’t want to die in a place like that; dirty and abandoned. He wouldn’t want to die _alone._

His dream had felt so real back then and he had just now started realizing that maybe it wasn’t a dream at all. But, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find an explanation for it all.

Jeremy sat down on the chair opposite of him and placed a cup of coffee in front of Matt. Their shift had just ended and they found themselves in the same old coffee shop. The windows were slightly dirty and the red paint of the tables had started peeling off. They used to go here every day when they were in high school. Matt loved this place.

“Are you going to explain to me what happened this morning?” Jeremy asked. He was holding his cup carefully, waiting for the coffee to cool down a bit. On the other side of the table Matt took a sip and burnt his tongue. Jeremy didn’t even comment on it. He sighed.

“Matt, how did you know that something happened in that church?” he tried again.

“Just a feeling,” Matt replied, averting his eyes and sipping his coffee.

“I can see right through your bullshit you know,” Jeremy replied, a note of bitterness in his voice.

Matt let out a deep breath. He felt like Jeremy’s dark eyes were looking right into his soul. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust him. Matt hated lying. But this was difficult to explain even to his own self.

“I don’t even know if something _actually_ _happened_ in that church,” he started. “I- I had a dream last night. I saw that church and there was a man lying on the mattress. He had a gun and some pills and then some other people with guns came and he- he turned the gun to himself and then I couldn’t see anything anymore and I woke up.”

Matt stopped and took a deep, shaky breath. As soon as he had started talking the words flowed out of his mouth like water. He tried to hide his trembling hands. His mind was convinced that it was just a dream, but his heart wasn’t. He felt scared thinking about it. No, he felt _terrified_.

Jeremy reached from across the table and squeezed his arm.

“I believe you,” he said and Matt finally looked at him. “But if you’re not sure we can go and check the security footage from nearby shops.”

Matt felt relief wash over him. He choked out a _thank you_. His coffee was now cool enough to drink and Jeremy started rambling about that person he met at a bar.

All felt normal again.

Matt was watching what must have been the most boring surveillance footage of his life. Opposite the church, on the other side of the road, there were three shops; a bookshop, a bar and a food store. The owner of the bookstore narrowed his eyes as soon as they walked in. He was an old black man, wearing a white shirt that matched his white hair. Jeremy tried to chat him up, but it was obvious he didn’t really like them. Not that they could blame him. He refused to give them any surveillance footage without a warrant. Matt sighed but nodded. But deep down he knew he would have done the same. What they were asking for was illegal and they both knew it, but they also knew that no one would give them a warrant to search security footage of three shops just because of _instincts_. The bar was closed, or at least they pretended they were closed. Their last hope was the food store. 

It was an Indian supermarket; small and warm but empty. A middle-aged brown woman was sitting behind the counter, her eyes glued to the book she was holding. Matt didn’t recognise the name of the author, but judging from the cover it looked like a crime novel. She was biting her nails, but she stopped as soon as she saw them.

Matt asked for the videos from her security cameras, for _investigation purposes_ and thank god she didn’t ask for a warrant. She led them into an old storage room. There was a computer there and multiple shoe boxes filled with disks. Jeremy asked for the footage of the last four days and she found it for them. 

The woman asked to stay and watch the videos with them, and that’s what they did for the next hour or so. Her eyes were glued on the screen, Matt noticed, almost as if she too was looking for something. He had met people like her before, fans of crime novels, always eager to get involved. After rewinding it for the second time, she sighed and left the storage room. Matt and Jeremy kept watching, speeding the video up, slowing it down, but there was no point. Nothing out of the ordinary happened on this road. 

Eventually, she let them take the footage with them. Now, Matt was watching it again and feeling sorry for the hours he was wasting. He couldn’t find anything useful. In the past four days around fifteen people had passed that road. Eight had gone into the bar, four into the bookstore and only three visited the food store. He couldn’t understand how this place was still open when it had no customers.

Jeremy ordered pizza and he complained about not getting enough days off the entire time. When he left and Matt continued watching the same fifteen people pass back and forth in front of the camera. But none of them were David or the man with the ginger hair. It was driving him insane.

He was slowly dozing off. His bed was warm and his sheets smelled of lavender. Matt closed his eyes and surrendered to his tiredness.

But then he heard a voice next to him.

“Wait, start this again.”

He startled so hard that his laptop fell off his lap. His eyes widened and he leaned over the side of the bed to catch it just before it hit the floor. “Jesus _Christ_ ,” he shouted. As soon as he realized his laptop was safe and his heart found its way back to its position, he turned to look at the intruder.

There was someone sitting on his bed, his legs crossed and his eyes widened. Matt was fairly sure he had never seen this person before. Black hair, pale skin and a tattoo on his left cheekbone. His eyes were green and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a while. Matt jumped out of the bed and grabbed his gun from the nightstand. He pointed it at the man who raised his hands and almost fell off the bed.

“How the fuck did you get in here?” Matt asked, trying to sound serious despite his surprise and the fact he was wearing pyjamas with small teddy bears on them.

“I don’t know,” the other person replied and it almost looked like he was telling the truth. “Where is _here_?” he asked, genuinely confused.

Matt lowered his gun a little. “My house?” he replied. “Who are you?”

“I’m Kevin,” he replied and somehow Matt already knew that would be the answer. “ _Where_ is your house? Why is it dark outside?” Kevin asked again.

“How can you possibly not know?” Matt put down his gun. Not the smartest move he could do, but he somehow found himself trusting this stranger. “It’s in Bristol,” he answered.

Now, it was Kevin’s turn to jump off the bed. His eyes widened even more. “ _Bristol?_ ” he asked, his voice filled with shock. “As in Bristol in the UK?”

“Yeah, Bristol in the UK,” Matt replied. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“What is happening,” Kevin started, “is that I am supposed to be in New York.”

Matt remained silent for a few minutes. This was probably the most absurd experience of his life; this person has gotten into his room in Bristol and he was claiming he didn’t know how and that he was supposed to be on the other side of the ocean. He should have already arrested him for breaking and entering, but deep down he knew that Kevin was telling the truth. He couldn’t explain it. No, he couldn’t, but at the same time that didn’t mean it wasn’t real.

Kevin’s head fell back and he was now looking at the ceiling. His eyes were different, there was a light in them, the kind of light that only appears when you look straight into the sun or at something beautiful.

“Can’t you see them?” he whispered.

Matt looked up and _yes,_ he could now see them. Seagulls were flying above their heads, their voices ringing all around him. He let out a loud laugh. Matt looked around him. The waves were crashing on the shore and people were walking on the beach. An old man was selling hot dogs in a stand five meters on his right.

He really was standing in the middle of New York, barefoot, in his ridiculous pyjamas.

Matt looked at Kevin. The sun was setting and he was still standing there looking towards the sky. Matt moved closer to him.

“Is this real?” he whispered, afraid someone would hear him.

“I think it is,” Kevin replied.

“How did we do this?” Matt asked, jumping back into his bed. He brought his laptop on his lap again and rested his back against the headboard.

“I have no idea really,” Kevin answered and sat next to him. “So, what are we looking at?” he asked.

Matt started the video again. “I had this dream,” he started explaining, “I was in a church and there was a man with flame tattoos on his arms and-”

“And he had a gun,” Kevin interrupted. “He had a gun and some other people come in and he turned the gun towards himself.”

“Exactly,” Matt whispered. His words floated in the air between them, heavy and startling. “Do you know what happened next?”

“No, I woke up after that,” Kevin answered.

Matt frowned. His mind was working very fast, yet he still couldn’t come up with an explanation for all this. “I found the church,” he finally said. He pointed at the one on the security footage. “But I can’t see anyone getting in or out that night.”

“Let me have a look,” Kevin said and took the laptop on his own lap.

Matt went to the kitchen and brought back a couple of slices of leftover pizza.

“I don’t think I can eat that,” Kevin said, his eyes glued on the screen, as if he was watching the most interesting video of his life. Matt ate in silence, but something was bugging him. A question, a question that remained at the edge of his tongue, a question he was too scared to say out loud.

“Do you think there are others like us?” he finally asked. “Not that I know what _we are_ ,” he added.

Kevin tore his eyes away from the screen. Matt had this weird feeling he looked like David. “I think there are,” he said.

This time it was Kevin that broke the silence they have fallen into. “Something’s wrong with the video here,” he said suddenly. “There is a street light flickering here,” he explained, pointing at the right corner of the video. “Now, look at this, it stops flickering at around 12 am and starts again at 4 am. I don’t think street lights get fixed just like that for a few hours,” he said.

“What are you saying?” Matt asked. His heartbeat started racing again.

“I’m saying,” Kevin started again, “someone deleted 4 hours of this and replaced it with a frozen image.”

Kevin left soon after and Matt fell asleep wrapped like a burrito with his blankets. He woke up early although he didn’t have to go to work. It was one of these days that he couldn’t open his eyes properly and all he wanted was to go back to sleep. Matt dragged his feet on the carpet as he went to the kitchen. Three or four sips remained on the coffee maker from the day before. He didn’t even bother to grab a cup.

Jeremy answered on the seventeenth call. Matt was counting.

“Please tell me why, why _on earth_ , can’t you let me sleep on my day off,” he growled.

“Good morning to you too,” Matt answered. “Time to get up. We need to go to that food store again.”

“And why do we have to do it _now_?” Jeremy asked.

“Because we just have to,” he said. “I’ll be waiting. Don’t be late,” he added and hung up.

It didn’t take Jeremy long to arrive. Matt saw Jeremy’s old Ford Focus parked at the entrance of his building and flew down the stairs.

“I got you coffee,” Jeremy said in lieu of hello, though his voice and his body stance were saying _‘if you ruin my day off again I’ll kill you with my own two hands’._

Jeremy, Matt had noticed, liked to pretend he was angry. But the truth was it was physically impossible for him to hold a grudge or get mad over something so insignificant. Jeremy was a kind person. Matt sometimes wondered how he ended up in the police. They had grown up together, went to school together, graduated together and got into the force together. Their houses used to be one block apart and Matt spent countless summer evenings with Jeremy and his grandmother. His life was simple and peaceful back then. Matt knew he would give anything to relive these little moments. Just him and Jeremy, on a front porch, against the world.

The car stopped outside the food store. There was only one customer inside and the same middle-aged woman.

“Hello,” he said smiling and showed his badge. “I brought you your security videos back. Thank you for your help.”

The lady took the DVDs back. “It was nothing,” she said. “I’m glad I could help.”

Matt smiled again and paused for a second. Both Jeremy and the woman looked at him, a question mark on their eyes.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asked hesitantly.

“Well, yes,” Matt started, but something was holding him back. A strange feeling was spreading all over his body, something that felt awfully like fear. As if all his atoms were whispering the same thing; _abandon this case, don’t dig further into it, run._

“Yes?” Jeremy said, trying to hide his confusion. Jeremy’s voice brought Matt back to reality.

“Yes,” he started again, determination filling his voice. “Has anyone else, apart from you and us, looked at these videos before?” he finally asked.

The woman stared at him and then stared at Jeremy. And then she smiled. "No," she said and shrugged. Her shoulders were relaxed and her smile genuine, but if you looked closely enough at her eyes you could see a hint of anxiety creeping out. As if her smile didn't quite reach them.

"She's lying," a blonde woman next to him said.

"What?" he asked as he turned to look at his side, confusion filling his voice. He hadn't noticed her standing next to him. It was like she had appeared out of thin air.

"I didn't say anything," Jeremy said, equally confused.

"They can't see me," the blonde said again. And then her face lit up before she added, "Pretend your phone is ringing."

Matt quickly reached for his pocket and got his phone out. He mumbled a _sorry, have to take this_ before putting it against his ear.

"Hi," he said, a little hesitant.

"Good, now we can talk to each other," the blonde replied.

"Yes, I see," Matt said again, trying to sound as natural as he could.

"I know a liar when I see one. I've been an actress for five years and even before that I was a damn good one myself," she started. "And I can promise this lady is lying through her teeth. Let me handle this."

"Okay," Matt replied, dragging out the word.

And then something weird happened. He started moving and talking, but it wasn't entirely him. It _was_ , but at the same time, it _wasn't._ He wasn't feeling like someone else had taken over his body, no. It was more like another _part_ of him had surfaced. A part he didn't entirely recognise.

"Okay, thank you," he said, putting his phone back into his pocket.

He shifted his attention towards the woman behind the counter again and smiled.

"I just got a call from our department," he started. "They told me they checked other nearby cameras and you know, the cameras rarely lie."

He paused. The woman wasn't smiling anymore but she also didn't seem like she'd talk anytime soon.

The blonde wasn’t next to him anymore. She was somehow using his mouth to talk, his body to move. She was doing too many hand gestures while speaking. _Less hand gestures,_ he thought, _I don’t move my hands so much._

"You can either tell us the truth now, or we can go to the police station," he added. Matt wanted to grimace at that. It wasn’t something he would say and the words sat uncomfortably in his chest. 

The woman behind the counter eyed him once again. She narrowed her eyes at them.

“You can trust us,” Jeremy chimed in.

She closed her eyes and sighed. To Matt, she looked really _tired_.

“Two men came here yesterday morning, a few hours before you did,” she started. “They asked for the same videos you did. They demanded I leave them alone for around 20 minutes.”

“And why didn’t you mention it yesterday?” Jeremy asked, trying to contain his surprise.

“They said they were from the Intelligence Department. They warned me to not say anything. To anyone,” she explained. “They showed me their badges and guns. They looked rather scary,” she countered, her voice almost a whisper.

Matt was already feeling exhausted. “If you felt like there was something wrong with them, you could have denied them access to the videos.”

“I told you, they had guns. I’ve lived long enough to know that you don’t say no to people who could easily shoot you anytime and get away with it. _”_

Punching him would have hurt less. After five years on the force he had seen enough to know she was right and he hated it. “So, why are you telling us now?” Matt asked again.

“Because,” she started, “they looked way scarier than you do.”

Both Matt and Jeremy sighed at the same time. “What did they look like?” Matt asked.

“One of them had black hair and the other was ginger. Around 40, I’d say. Both of them. Average height. The ginger one had blue eyes and some nasty scars all over his right hand. Saw them when he showed me his badge,” she replied.

“Anything else you’d like to add?” Jeremy asked one final time.

The woman seemed to think about it for a second. “No,” she finally replied and smiled.

When they left the store the sun was still out, which was a little surprising. It almost felt like they spent their whole day inside that place. They headed back to Matt’s house and while Jeremy made pasta Matt explained how he noticed someone had replaced a big part of the videos with a frozen image. He didn’t mention Kevin or the blonde woman, though.

“So, what now?” Jeremy asked as he put a plate in front of Matt and sat down at the kitchen table.

“Seems like this case is more complicated than I thought,” Matt replied and started eating.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note that there is some German in this chapter, but I'm not familiar at all with this language, so sorry for any mistakes. Corrections are more than welcomed! 
> 
> Trigger warnings for this chapter are: mentioned past abuse, blood, violence.

Neil was having a dream. He sometimes found he was able to tell the difference between dreams and reality. He watched himself get into a mini market.

“Guten Morgen,” he murmured as he passed in front of the cashier and headed straight for the croissants. _ Good morning _ , although he wasn’t sure it was still morning. Living alone meant he had to take care of himself and being a runaway meant he had no one to worry about him, no one to scold him about his eating habits. Not that he would let anyone get this close or this attached anyway.

He got some bread, a couple of croissants and bags of chips and a big bottle of orange juice. As he was passing in front of the fridges he stopped. He looked at his reflection for a minute. A boy with blond hair and green eyes was looking back at him. Dark circles had started forming under his eyes. Neil sighed.

He dropped the things he was carrying in front of the cashier, but the boy didn’t move. “Bist du in Ordnung?” he asked,  _ are you alright _ , not because he cared, but because he just wanted to pay and leave.

The boy didn’t seem to have heard him, but he started moving anyway. At first Neil thought he was reaching for the things in front of him. Instead he grabbed Neil’s arm.

“What are you doing?” Neil asked again, venom soaking into his voice. “Lass meinen Arm los!”  _ Let go of my arm. _

The boy’s eyes were cold and empty. He was looking straight into Neil’s eyes, but it was almost as he wasn’t really  _ seeing _ him. “ _ He found you _ ,” he whispered, his words echoing inside Neil’s heart, just before the shop and everything around him dissolved into darkness.

He landed into a completely different place. He was almost sure it was a church. Shards of glass and pieces of marble were littering the floor and what must have once been golden chandeliers, was now rusty metallic skeletons, stripped of all their beauty. In the centre of the room lay a miserable looking mattress. On it lay a man. Neil knew this was a dream, he  _ knew  _ it, but something, deep deep inside of him, insisted otherwise. “Who are you?” he asked, his feet slowly taking him towards the man.

His arms were tattooed, Neil noticed. Flames climbing up his wrists and elbows and arms. The man didn’t answer, he just raised his head and looked at Neil. Chills ran down his spine, he was feeling as if that person could really see through him, through all his identities and _ lies _ .

“I see you,” he whispered and Neil could feel it, he could feel his body expanding, his heartbeat accelerating, his mind being unmade and recreated. For a moment he felt like he was elevating. He fell to his knees.

“What did you just do?” he asked, almost out of breath.

But the man, David — yes, that was his name — seemed like he was worlds away already. He reached for a small metallic box that was laying next to the mattress. He took a small black pill out of it and swallowed it quickly. David also took a gun out of it.

“No, wait!” Neil shouted at him.

The roof, the walls, the floor, everything around him had started dissolving. Darkness was swallowing him once again. He saw the silhouettes of four people coming into the church. Neil was fairly sure three of them were heavily armed. But the fourth one — the fourth one looked somehow familiar. The way he walked, the way his hands moved and the way his chin was slightly raised. He kept searching his memories and it was almost like the answer was there, at the edge of his mind, at the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t quite reach it. But then: the man opened his mouth and Neil’s whole body felt like it was electrocuted.

He hadn’t heard that voice in a very long time, but no matter how many years had passed or how many people he had met or escaped from, he could never forget it. The sarcastic tone, the words slowly pouring out of his mouth, the coldness that reached every corner of his body, of his  _ heart _ , every time he heard it.

The man was Nathan Wesninski. The man was his father.

Neil woke up before the sun was out. His room was small, a bed, a table, a closet and a small kitchen counter, all crumbled up. For its size, the place was quite expensive, but it was the cheapest room he could find with its own bathroom. Sometimes he liked sitting on his tiny balcony and observing the people living on the building opposite from his. He liked making up stories, trying to guess their names and relationships and ages. He liked adding himself in all of it. The truth was, Neil was tired of being alone.

He was buried inside his blankets, but he still heard it. The sound of footsteps on the stairs. Normally, he would ignore it. It wasn’t unusual for people to get back on their homes late at night. But there was something off with these footsteps. They were trying to be quiet on purpose, Neil realised. He could hear more than one pair, but they were slow and almost silent.

He unwrapped himself and reached under his bed. There was a backpack there, full of clothes and money and everything he needed for a quick escape. Neil put his shoes on and took something from under his nightstand. The metal of the gun was shining under the dim lighting coming from outside. His room was on the first floor, it wasn’t hard to escape. That’s why he chose it.

His movements were swift but delicate. Neil had long ago learnt how to move silently and quickly. He went down the fire escape. His building was next to a park. Neil didn’t like parks. They usually had open spaces, which made it difficult to hide, and their trees and bushes weren’t big enough to cover you. He had already found and prepared some hiding spots there, though. He just had to reach them in time.

It was pitch black among the trees, but he knew the way by heart. That’s what he was doing for a whole month when he arrived in Berlin. He had scanned every corner of the neighborhood and when he found this one in the park, he had spent every night going back and forth without any light. His father would not catch him. He would  _ not. _

He had been walking for about five minutes when he finally arrived. It was a storage room, abandoned and hidden close to a fountain. He figured there once was someone who took care of the park and locked all his equipment there. It was now covered in vines and spiderwebs. Neil had only cleaned it on the inside, he didn’t want it to look attractive on the outside.

The door didn’t have a lock, but he had installed a couple of bolts on the inside. This place was only meant to be a temporary hideout, till his father’s men would stop searching the area and Neil would get out and catch the first train or plane. What he didn’t expect was for them to act smart.

The door swung open with a loud bang as if someone had kicked it, revealing the dark silhouette of a woman.

“Long time no see, Junior,” Lola said.

Lola didn’t like people making a fool of her. In fact, only one person who had fooled her remained alive and she had set out to fix that. The news came on a quiet morning. She hadn’t slept at all and she was drinking coffee. Black and hot. She didn’t even notice it when she burnt her tongue.

Junior. He was in Europe. How foolish of him to think they wouldn’t find him. Changing continents wasn’t going to help him. They would catch him and bring him back. They would. This time would be different.

Lola wanted to barge into his apartment and start shooting as soon as they found it. But Romero was right; his mother had taught him well. Nathaniel would always be prepared. So she swallowed her pride and agreed to wait. It was eating her alive of course but the thought of Junior helpless in her hands eased her overwhelming anticipation.

They waited and observed. Observed and waited. Unknowingly he showed them all his hiding spots, his escape plans. They started watching everyone he interacted with, looking for signs. This idiot even found a job. A cute little library in his neighborhood. Junior was getting sloppy. The red had started showing on his roots. His true identity was slipping through the cracks.

One full month passed before they decided to make their move. They would go from the stairs, the way they would go if they didn’t know he would easily leave the room from the fire escape and run towards the park. Knowing all these made Lola feel her heart swell. She had set the perfect trap. This time, Junior would fall right into her hands.

She couldn’t wait.

Neil tried to fight back, but it was him against six or seven people. At least he managed to shoot one in the stomach and another one on the leg. It was very satisfying hearing them scream. Lola tazed him a couple of times before they managed to tie his hands.

The basement they put him in wasn’t far from his building, only a couple of blocks away. He then realized how dumb he had been. For once in his life, he thought he was building something steady. Of course, he never let himself feel safe — Neil wasn’t even sure if he knew how  _ safe _ felt like — but he didn’t want to leave this city just yet.

He knew he would escape. He had done this before and he was ready to do it again, no matter what it would take, he wasn’t going back to his father.

They tied him on a metallic chair in the middle of the empty room. The light above his head made his eyes hurt. Four people were sitting around the room, watching him from every angle. Lola took a chair and dragged it in front of him. She sat down.

“We are leaving tomorrow morning,” she said. Neil kept staring at her with disgust. Of course he was afraid. He was  _ terrified _ , but he would never give her the satisfaction of looking weak.

Lola leaned closer. She dragged one finger down his cheek and neck. “What a shame,” she started. “My knives are begging to ruin this sweet face of yours. But your father wants you all to himself.” She sighed and got up.

“I’m going to go see what you carry in this small backpack of yours now. Watch him carefully,” she barked at the others.

The door slammed behind her.

Neil was already thinking of an escape plan. There were only four guards now. He could easily remove the handcuffs by dislocating his thumb and putting it back into place, but he needed some sort of distraction. He needed the guards not to look at his hands, so he would have time to free himself and surprise them.

He was thinking fast, very fast.  _ How do you create a distraction, how do you create a distraction, how- _

His thoughts came to a halt when he saw someone walking around the room. Neil was sure this person wasn’t there before. He looked a bit shorter than him, but they must have been around the same age. His hair was blond and his cheeks flustered red against his pale skin. He was pacing around, looking at the guards, a weird expression of confusion on his face. Then he turned to look at Neil.

“What  _ the fuck _ is happening?” he asked.

Now it was Neil’s turn to frown. “What?” 

“Where are we?” the other man asked, craning his neck and looking around the room.

“Who are you?” Neil tried again, but as soon as the question escaped his mouth, he knew the answer. This was Andrew.

But before Andrew had the chance to answer, one of the guards spoke. “Hey!” he said. “Who the fuck are you talking to?”

Neil turned to look at him with genuine surprise. “Him,” he said, using his eyes to point at Andrew.

“There is no one there,” the guard said. “Cut this bullshit before someone gets hurt.”

“I don’t think they can see me,” Andrew said.

“But are you real?” Neil asked.

For a moment, Andrew seemed to hesitate before he answered. “I think I am,” he finally said. “Do you need help?”

“I’m fine,” came the answer from Neil, almost like a reflex.

Andrew looked at him dead in the eye. “Bullshit,” he said, his voice flat.

One of the guards moved towards him. “Didn't I tell you to stop?” he asked before punching Neil. Andrew’s eyes found Neil’s.

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Andrew said, venom feeling his voice.

Neil wasn’t even sure what happened next. He couldn’t see Andrew anymore, but he somehow heard his voice inside his head.  _ Rule number 1,  _ it said _ , never get too close.  _ And then he headbutted the guard.

The other three immediately got up and moved towards him. That was all the distraction Neil needed to get his handcuffs off. The guard he had hit was already standing up again, but Neil grabbed his head and it felt so good when it collided with his knee. One was out, he still had three to go. In a swift move he grabbed his chair and hit two of the guards with it, the ones that were closer to him. The third one had already gotten his gun out. Neil — or was it Andrew? — quickly grabbed one of the chair's broken legs and threw it to the guard, hitting him right on his forehead.  _ A gun _ , he thought,  _ we need a gun _ . 

It was half him, half Andrew fighting, using the same body. Neil had always relied more on defense, Andrew was attacking like he had nothing to lose. 

He ran to one of the semiconscious guards. Neil kneeled down and searched his body for his gun. Something heavy came down to his back and knocked the air out of his lungs. 

Another guard had hit him with what once was the chair. Neil tasted blood. A small smile crept into his face as his hand touched the familiar shape of a gun. Before the guard could hit him again, he turned and shot him on the stomach. 

He kept fighting; kicking, punching, shooting, till the remaining guards stopped getting back up.  _ Andrew _ , he thought,  _ are you still here? _ He climbed up the stairs. He had to find Lola. He had to find his backpack. He _ had to.  _

"If you ever need help again, just call to me," Andrew said next to him. He could now see him again and he looked hurt. Badly. But he vanished before Neil could ask him what had happened.  _ How could he be bleeding like that when Neil’s body was the one being hit? _

He stopped for a second, dead in his tracks, staring at where Andrew was standing just a moment ago. But he didn't have the luxury of time.  _ Time _ , he was always chasing Neil. 

It wasn't hard to find Lola. His hand itched, every cell on his body was screaming to kill her. But he didn't. Neil knew that it would hurt her more to live knowing she had failed once again. And he couldn’t afford leaving any evidence behind. Maybe his father would kill her. He smiled at that thought. 

His backpack was lying on the floor, untouched. He grabbed it and ran. 

Andrew’s words were ringing uncomfortably inside Neil’s chest. He wasn’t used to people offering to help him. He wasn’t used to accepting their help. But this time it felt different. Neil wasn’t sure what exactly had happened. Or if any of it was even real. Something deep inside of him told him it was. Andrew was there, but at the same time, he wasn’t.

Neil's new plan was to leave this city as soon as possible, but of course, he needed a car for that. His mother had taught him how to steal all sorts of cars since he was ten years old. His heart shrank at the thought of his mother. Sometimes he couldn’t stop thinking that she was the  _ only _ reason they had survived that long. He had already been caught twice in the past two years because of his stupidity. Because deep down he wanted to live normally for once.

The car he had chosen was black and old. Common and boring enough to not draw anyone’s attention. It was perfect. And it didn’t even have an alarm. Neil got his slim jim out of his backpack and wedged it between the door and the body of the car. It took him less than two minutes to hear the distinctive  _ click _ of the door unlocking. There were only some papers in the glove compartment. No snacks. He wished he had packed some snacks.

Since the car was made in the late eighties it wasn’t hard to hot wire. But it was hard driving without knowing where you were headed. Neil told himself it was okay, that he had done this before, that it was always going to be like that. He told himself that he didn't care.

He decided to go south. Something inside him didn’t want to leave Europe just yet. He would go to Austria since he already knew the language, or he could go to the Balkans. Stay there for a couple of months and then move somewhere in North Africa or back to America.

_ I have a plan. A good plan. Everything will work out _ , he kept telling himself. Neil Josten was good at lying to himself.

He was just outside Berlin when he heard someone speak next to him.

“Why are you running away again if you don’t want to?”

He was so startled that his foot jumped on the accelerator and the car lurched forward, snapping his head back onto the headrest. Neil only dared to glance on the seat next to him after his heart had calmed down.

A woman had appeared there. Her skin was dark and her natural hair were kept short. She was wearing a colourful night gown made of silk. Her eyes were glued to the road.

“Who are you?” Neil asked, tearing his eyes away from her and back to the road.

“I’m Dan,” she replied as if she hadn’t just appeared out of nowhere in his car.

“How did you get here?” he asked again.

“ _ Where  _ is  _ here _ ?” The words caught Neil by surprise. “The sunrise looks different. And the trees, the colours, the air. There is less… dust in it,” she added, but it seemed like she was talking more to herself than Neil.

He hadn’t even noticed the sun was rising.

“We— we are outside Berlin.” Out of the corner of his eye Neil saw Dan turn to look at him. The first rays of the morning sun were reflecting on her dark eyes, but there was also another kind of light on them, one that came from her heart.

“In Germany?” she asked. A loud and genuine laugh escaped her mouth. It only lasted one second but it was enough to make Neil feel better. To shatter the heavy cloud that had settled upon his heart. “I always wanted to go to Germany.” She turned to look at the road again. “Why are you leaving?” she asked finally.

“It’s not safe,” he answered. A lump on his throat was making it difficult for him to breath properly.

“I can feel your heart breaking. You don’t want to do this.  _ Don’t  _ do it.” Dan’s eyes were now piercing through his body. Neil felt  _ seen _ and he hated every second of it.

“You don’t understand,” he spat out and tightened his grip around the steering wheel. Dan sighed.

“But I do understand,” she said. “I know what it is like leaving your family, your friends, your home behind. I regret my decision more than  _ anything _ in the world.”

“But I don’t have a home,” Neil whispered and cleared his throat. “I don’t care,” he said a little louder.

“I think you do. Running away is not easy, but standing your ground is way harder. You  _ can  _ be brave, Neil.” Her words were flying around his mind. He saw pictures, images, of a different place — a considerably hotter place. He could smell the sea and feel the humidity of the air on his skin. There was a house, a warm and colourful room. It was a memory, but not his own. Neil could now understand what Dan meant and he felt the sadness swallow him whole. She didn’t look back when she left her home, she didn’t take most of her things with her. Neil was seeing the ghosts of her past.

“Maybe I don’t wanna be brave,” he choked out, his voice shaky. Deep down he knew he had already lost this fight.

Dan reached out to him and touched his shoulder. “Stop,” she said and she could have meant both the car and running. Neil pulled over on the side of the road.

“You are not alone anymore,” she said. “We will figure this all out, together.”

As the sun was rising, a tear fell down his face.

__ __

Nathan would have killed Lola years ago if she wasn’t the only one that actually came even remotely close to catching Junior. His son was an interesting case. But every day he spent on the run was one more day for Nathan to plan and fantasize about what he’d do to him when he finally caught him. The problem was that even  _ he  _ was sure this plan was going to work. He didn’t expect Lola to call him at midnight and tell him that they’ve lost him  _ once again. _

She sent him the video. The room they’ve put him in had cameras and it was soundproof. Perfectly designed for him. So how  _ the fuck _ did it all go wrong?

At first Nathan thought Junior was acting, creating a distraction to get his handcuffs off. But the more times he rewinded the video the more he started noticing Nathaniel’s reactions. It really was like he was talking to someone. His answers, his questions. One sentence stuck with him the most. He couldn’t stop hearing it inside his mind.  _ Are you real, are you real, are you real.  _ Why would he ask something like that if he was faking?

Of course, it was possible that his son has just started going slightly insane after running for so many years, but still, something didn’t quite fit. It was like he had a puzzle in front of him, with only one piece missing, but the fucking piece was nowhere to be found.

And then he finally noticed it. The way he fought. There were moments it looked a lot like kickboxing and moments it didn’t look like fighting at all. More like defense, a weak defense. He remembered a phone call he had with Lola weeks ago, when they were still watching him. Someone had tried to rob him on a dark alley. He distinctly remembered Lola saying that Junior didn’t know how to really fight. He only knew how to defend himself. The only reason he managed to get away unharmed was because the boy that tried to steal his money was high out of his mind.

So how did he learn to fight like that in three weeks. Unless… unless he wasn’t the one fighting. Or at least, he wasn’t the  _ only one _ fighting.

Nathan took his glasses off and started tapping his fingers onto the desk. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not only because Junior managed to escape again but also because there was something he wasn’t seeing. Or he didn’t want to see.

“He escaped again, didn’t he?” Ichirou asked. He was sitting by the window, looking outside at the empty street. He didn’t wait for an answer. “I was going to call, but then I realized you weren’t on blockers.” There was a hint of accusation on his voice.

“Yes, sir,” Nathan said. “I apologize.”

“Why do you keep thinking about this?” he asked again. He tore his eyes away from the window and moved towards Nathan’s desk. Ichirou sat down opposite him.

“You  _ do know _ the truth; you have always known.” He paused and searched Nathan’s eyes. “Anyway, I need you to come to the Building. We are moving to stage two.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

“And take your pills,” Ichirou added before vanishing again as suddenly as he appeared.

Nathan quickly got a small box out of a drawer. It was filled with black pills. He took one and swallowed it. His thoughts were spiraling out of control. Words, words kept running around his mind.  _ You have always known, you have always known, you have- _

Nathan started cracking his knuckles one by one. 

His son. His son was a sensate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! Ch. 3 will be up in two days:)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes [@aftgfanart](https://aftgfanart.tumblr.com)'s amazing art of Renee! 
> 
> Trigger warnings for this chapter: blood, mentions of drugs

The night was cold. Colder than usual. The weather had been very weird lately.

Andrew didn’t work on Thursdays, but he still found himself leaving his home in the middle of the night. He didn’t check the clock before he left, but it must have been around midnight. He arrived at the warehouse not long after.

“You’re late,” Jason said, opening the door for him. 

Andrew considered giving him the finger as he passed next to him but quickly decided it wasn’t worth it. The metallic door slammed behind him. The hallway leading to the makeshift locker room was always dark. Andrew hated this place.

Ana was waiting for him. She was sitting on one of the wooden benches amongst the lockers. Her eyes were glued to the screen of her phone. She seemed to be playing some sort of game. Andrew coughed.

“Nice to see you again,” she said, raising her head.

“Nice to see you too,  _ Ana _ .” Andrew liked stressing her name like that, although it didn’t matter. They all knew this definitely wasn’t her real name. She didn’t even know  _ his _ real name.

“Haven’t been here in a while, huh?” she asked, but it was more of a rhetoric question.

Andrew eyed her up and down. Ana couldn’t have been more than 35. Her head was shaved but she liked wearing wigs a lot. Right now her pink wig was sitting next to her on the bench. She was wearing a strapless, short dress that was also pink. She looked more like a stripper than the owner of an illegal fight club.But then again, it didn’t surprise Andrew. She always dressed like that.

“Do you need anything from me?” Andrew asked, growing more and more impatient with this small talk. He didn’t have time for this.

“Actually, yes, I do,” Ana said and stood up. “There is a new guy you are gonna fight tonight.”

“And?” he asked, already bored by this conversation.  _ Why can’t people just say what they want in one go and be done with it _ , he thought. 

“And he is a veteran. Trained to fight. Been to war. And double your size. Seriously, that guy is  _ huge _ .” She looked him in the eyes, probably waiting to hear him back off this fight. Ana knew Andrew was aggressive, but he wasn’t stupid. The wise thing to do was avoid this match.

What Ana didn’t know was that Andrew had a big fight with Nicky and Aaron before he left home earlier that night. At that moment, he didn’t really care about his opponent. He just wanted to punch someone.

“ _ And _ ?” he said again. She didn’t try to argue. They were all adults after all. Each one was responsible for their choices and their consequences.

“Okay, your choice,” she said, while walking out.

The only thing Andrew hated about these fights was the crowd. They were driving him insane with all their yelling and cheering and moving around. But he liked fighting. It was one of the only things that made him feel alive again. The lights, the sweat, the adrenaline rush, his heart beating faster than ever and knives stabbing at his lungs with every breath he took. And on top of that, he also gained some money. Money meant he didn’t have to watch Aaron being so miserable about his medical school tuition all the fucking time.

Ana was right though, this guy  _ was _ huge. He was wearing a plain black shirt and cargo pants. His hair was white and long, reaching his tanned shoulders and he had tied a black bandana around his forehead. He got into the ring with an air of absolute confidence. Andrew really wanted to punch that arrogant grin off his face.

The fight started. Andrew was ready to win but for the first time he found himself unable to focus. His mind was constantly drifting. He was seeing images of another place, another room. There was someone tied up in a chair.

He kept fighting, but it was almost like he was flickering in and out of two places. At first he thought he might be dreaming. But the pain on his body was too strong to be a dream. Andrew was losing. The veteran was attacking with everything he had and Andrew was still trying to understand if this was a dream or not.

“What the  _ fuck  _ is happening?” he asked, but he wasn’t sure if he was asking the man that was tied up somewhere in an unknown room or himself.

Andrew almost lost it when the man answered him.

Now, it was almost like his mind and his body were being in two places at the same time. He was still throwing punches in an underground illegal fight club in the middle of San Francisco, but he was also having a conversation with someone, while no one else in the room seemed to be able to see him.

“Do you need help?” he asked, because he had to be there for a reason. He felt he was there for a reason. 

“I’m fine,” Nathaniel replied. No. Neil. Yes, that was his name. Neil.

The people who were guarding him didn’t look very happy with their little conversation. One of them got up and made his way towards Neil.  _ Perfect,  _ Andrew thought. Then, without really knowing how, he swapped places with him. Or, maybe not exactly, but he somehow was in his position now. Andrew could feel the metal on his hands and legs. He could see the guard saying something right in front of his face.  _ Rule number 1,  _ he thought,  _ never get too close.  _ And then he headbutted the guard.

At another place, at another time, but somehow at the same time, someone headbutted  _ him _ . Not someone, no. The veteran, the one he was fighting. This was the first time something like this was happening to Andrew, with or without drugs, and he found it hard to concentrate on one thing. He felt like his brain was being torn apart, like someone was pulling it towards two opposite directions at the same time.

He punched the veteran and he punched a guard. He was kicking and fighting and suddenly he was holding a chair and throwing it at one of the guards. Andrew avoided one of the veteran's punches and kicked him in the stomach, but at the same time he noticed another guard had pulled a gun. He grabbed a piece of the broken chair and threw it right to the guy's face. He was experiencing a kind of dizziness he hadn't felt before. He was sweating and his eyes kept darting all over the place. He just wished for the pulling in his brain to stop, even for a second, just one second.

The veteran found the chance to attack now that Andrew looked disorientated. He punched him once, twice, three times. His hands found their way to his shoulders and held him tightly as his knee collided with his stomach again and again. Andrew fell on the ground as soon as he released him from his grip.

At the dirty old basement, Neil kept fighting. Three out of four guards were down and he was heading for the last one. Blood came out of Andrew's mouth, or maybe it was Neil's, or maybe it was both.

" _ Are you still here? Andrew? _ " he heard a voice whispering inside his head. He mumbled something, at least he thought he did, but he had no idea what it was.

The pulling at his brain stopped right before he fainted.

Nicky's face was about three inches above his when Andrew woke up. He ignored the urge to headbutt him and instead stared at his cousin with the most indifferent look he could master.

"Am I dead? Is this what hell looks like?" he asked, his voice flat.

Nicky sighed and finally moved. He was lying on a bed, Andrew realized. Probably his. He had no idea how he got back home though.

"Ana called me," Nicky said as if he had read Andrew's thoughts. "She said you were badly hurt and unconscious."

There was an uncomfortable silence hanging in the air between them again. Andrew knew what he had to say. He wanted to say it but the words always seemed to be stuck in his throat when it came to apologising.

Nicky got up to leave, but he stopped under the doorstep. He turned to look at Andrew.

"You don't have to do this anymore," he finally said. "Aaron was very worried about you although he won't admit it. And I was too."

Nicky left and Aaron soon came in. He laid next to him on the bed.

"You're an idiot," he said, his voice echoing in the dark room.

"What are you holding?" Andrew asked instead.

"Ice cream," Aaron replied. "But it's only for smart people."

"Then why do you have it?" Andrew immediately responded.

"Because everyone knows I'm the better twin."

Andrew thought that a normal person would probably smile at that. He kept staring at the dark ceiling.

Aaron sighed and extended his hand. Andrew reached out and took the ice cream. It took a lot of effort not to let any sounds escape his mouth. His whole body was hurting.

"You're lucky you didn't break anything," Aaron said. "What were you thinking?" he asked in the same flat tone.

"I—" Andrew started but he didn't know how to continue. How could he possibly explain this to his brother? Not even he was sure about what had happened. Was it a side effect of his medication? Had he now started hallucinating? But it felt so real. Aaron and Nicky would definitely think he was losing his mind this time. No, he had to figure this out alone.

"Yes?" he heard Aaron's voice next to him.

"Nothing. I just got distracted," he replied.

Aaron could sense something was off. He let out a deep sigh again. He was tired of his brother not talking to him. He was tired  _ and _ angry. Andrew had always been acting as if the weight of the world was his, and only his, to carry.

"I won't take any more money from you when this is what you do to get them. I'd rather quit uni than see you like this again."

Aaron slammed the door behind him.

Andrew woke up with a headache. Nothing unusual about that. He tried to get up, but his whole body was aching. The curtains were drawn, but the sun was clearly shining outside. He must have slept for over ten hours. It was the longest he’d slept in months.

With a bit of effort, he managed to raise his hand and find his phone on the nightstand. The clock on the screen informed him it was 5pm. Aaron was probably at the library, studying, and Nicky must have gone out. The house was completely silent.

Andrew slowly dragged himself out of the bed. He really needed a shower. It wasn’t the first time he had gotten beaten up, but it  _ was  _ the first time he was so confused about it. He tried to avoid catching his reflection in the mirror. If only there was a way he could find Neil, find out if he was real and what happened to him. Why were these people after him? What had he done? How was Andrew able to see it all?

The cold shower did nothing to sooth his pain. He tried not to think too much about the bruises that covered most of his body. He tried not to look. He kept staring at the white tiles of their bathroom and the way drops of water were sliding down. On his way out, he looked at the mirror. Purple, green and yellow were staining his face. He closed his eyes. It almost felt like that was how his face and his body were supposed to be. Always covered in bruises, always hurt.

Someone was waiting for him in his bedroom. He was sitting on his bed, cross-legged, a laptop in front of him. Andrew later realized he ought to have been more surprised seeing a stranger in his room, but at that moment, it felt almost  _ normal.  _

“Who are you?” he asked, standing on the doorstep.

The man didn’t even look at him. His eyes were glued at the screen and his fingers were running through the keyboard. “I’m Kevin,” he replied.

“And what are you doing here?” Andrew asked again.

“Helping you.” Kevin raised his eyes. Only then did Andrew realize that he had a tattoo on his left cheekbone. “Oh right,” he continued, “where exactly is  _ here _ ?”

That question took Andrew by surprise but something inside him told him it was okay to answer. “San Francisco.”

“Cool,” said Kevin and went back to typing on his laptop. Andrew decided it was time to move inside the room. He sat down next to Kevin.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“You saw someone last night, right? Someone you shouldn’t have seen in a place you shouldn’t have been,” Kevin said. 

“How do you know that?” 

Kevin stopped typing. He looked at Andrew. His eyes were searching for something. Andrew didn’t know what that  _ something _ was. He was growing tired. With every passing second he had more and more questions, but no answers. 

Kevin tapped his left temple with his index finger. “You told me,” he replied and went back to his screen. “I’m trying to find that building he was held in. His name was Neil, right?”

“Yeah,” whispered Andrew. He tore his eyes away from Kevin and finally looked at the laptop. Several tabs and windows were open, but there was something off with the interface. Andrew couldn’t see some maps and some other information in German. They looked like photocopies of contracts of some sort. He started reading them. Kevin opened more and more documents on the screen, so quickly that it was difficult for him to follow. 

“What are you looking for exactly?” Andrew asked.

“Whatever might be proven useful. Don’t you want to know who these people were and why are they after him?” A cctv video appeared on the screen. “Here,” he said. “They bought this place two weeks before catching him. They had probably been watching him for far longer.”

“But why?” Andrew asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t find anything about him online. It’s like he doesn’t even exist. And I can’t access his memories yet. I’m still trying to understand how this works.” 

Andrew was about to ask how he meant by  _ this _ , when Kevin’s breath hitched. 

“What?” he asked instead, moving closer to get a better view of the screen. Some new files had appeared. This time they were written in Japanese. 

This took Andrew by surprise. “Do you know Japanese?” he asked.

“No, but someone does,” Kevin answered. “I think her name is Renee. But that’s not the point.” Kevin stopped. It seemed like his mind was trailing off. 

“And what  _ is  _ the point?” Andrew said impatiently. 

“The building they took Neil to was bought by a French company. But there was something off with that purchase. The company didn’t seem real. I traced the money back to a British company and then an American one. They all seem to have something to do with technology, but I couldn’t find anything online for any of them. No website, no announcements, no events, no news, not even a wikipedia page. It’s all a facade. It took some digging but I think I finally found the main company, the only one that seems real enough.”

“Was any of this legal?” Andrew smirked.

“Not even remotely. And now I wish I hadn’t found it.”

Andrew waited for Kevin to continue, but he didn’t. He was reading the document on the screen. Sweat was running down his forehead and his eyes were wide. Fear rose in his heart.

“Are you going to tell me?” he asked, his voice sounding weird and too loud in the quiet of the room. 

“The Japanese company is owned by the Moriyamas. Worse than any mob you can think of. They have connections everywhere in the world and in most governments. I’ve been trying to track them down in New York for ages.” In a sudden move he closed the laptop’s screen with force. “Fuck,” he whispered under his breath. 

“How do you know about all this?” Andrew asked. “Why were you tracking them down?” It almost felt like the questions were never going to end. 

Kevin slowly turned to look at him. Only then did Andrew notice that his eyes were green. Little red veins had appeared around his pupils. It made them look even more green, a shade that reminded Andrew of the forest after it had rained. 

He seemed to be searching for that  _ something _ again in his face, but it looked like he couldn’t find it. Andrew hated being looked at like that. 

Kevin looked away again. His eyes were now fixed to the blank white wall in front of him. Without understanding how, Andrew knew the answer right before he spoke. 

“They killed my mother,” Kevin whispered. 

  
  


Andrew didn’t want to go to work that day. It wouldn’t be the first time his face was bruised. His boss would just cover them with some makeup, make him wear a face mask and call it a fashion statement of their bartender. But his mess of a face wasn’t the reason he didn’t want to go to work. The reason was the thoughts that were swarming around his brain all day, making it difficult for him to think clearly and worsening his headache. 

He hadn’t experienced anything like that before. Hallucinating was something new. No drugs he had used throughout his life had this effect. Andrew thought maybe he should talk to Bee about it, in case it’s a new freaky side effect of his medication, or in case he suddenly developed schizophrenia.

But how? How could he possibly talk about feeling like his brain is being torn in half — or not just half, but multiple pieces? How could he talk about seeing people he shouldn’t be seeing and being in places he shouldn’t be and knowing things he shouldn’t have known? Even he understood how crazy it all sounded. Andrew couldn’t risk being sent to a psychiatric ward. That wasn’t an option for him. He had to protect Aaron and Nicky. He had to make money and help them and be there and  _ protect them.  _ They were his family. He wouldn’t leave them behind. 

The back door of Eden’s Twilight was heavy. Andrew tried to open it holding the handle with both of his hands, but his bruised muscles weren’t much of a help. His body felt sore. He pulled at it for a couple of seconds before he gave up, breathing heavily. He briefly considered asking the men at the front door to come and help, but he immediately scratched that thought. Suddenly the door swung towards him. Andrew quickly backed away before it hit him right at the head. 

A young woman he didn’t recognise got out of the bar. This door was supposed to be used only by the staff, but he didn’t care enough about all that to tell her so. She let it close behind her and just stood there, facing Andrew.  _ She sure is strange _ , he thought. 

Andrew couldn’t help but notice her hair. It was cut short in a way that led him to believe she had cut it herself. The silver dye was glimmering under the streetlights and the colourful tips were barely touching her shoulders. She was taller than him, although almost everyone is taller than him. 

She also seemed to be studying him, her eyes running up and down his body, lingering at his face. Andrew suddenly felt like she knew exactly what had happened to him. He shivered. 

“あなたもその一人です,” she said, looking down at him. And he knew, somehow he  _ knew _ what it meant.  _ You are one of them. _

“I am,” he replied instinctively. Andrew didn’t know where this came from. He was startled by his own voice. He wasn’t even sure he spoke in english. 

“Where am I?” the woman asked again, looking around at the half-empty parking lot, the mini market and burger shop on the other side of the street and the skyscrapers barely visible in the distance. 

“In San Francisco. Where are  _ you _ ?” They both knew he meant  _ where are you normally from, where do you live, where are you right now apart from here.  _

“I’ll show you,” she said and opened the door. Andrew snuck in behind her before it closed again. He expected to see the dark corridor that led to the bar’s staff room. This certainly wasn’t a dark corridor. 

The sunlight momentarily blinded him. Andrew closed his eyes and brought his hands to his ears. Suddenly everything was too loud and too bright. He felt someone touch his hands, gently. He lowered them from his ears, but he still didn’t open his eyes. 

“Breathe,” he heard the woman in front of him say. 

“私には多すぎる,” he mumbled, in that language he didn’t know he knew. _ It’s too much for me _ .

The woman’s hand hovered over his. “Let me help you,” she said. 

Her voice was soft and calm. It reminded him of Nicky’s voice when he tried to comfort Andrew. He always ignored him, but now, the tone of that voice was grounding. It reminded him of home. 

Andrew touched her hand and she held it tightly as they started walking. He had no idea where they were heading, or where they actually were in the first place, but everything became less bright as they took a turn. Andrew slowly opened his eyes. 

They were in an alley. The buildings were tall and close to each other. The sky was clear above their heads and the sun was shining. People were rushing all around them and the small restaurants left and right were full. Red lanterns were hanging here and there, with words painted on them. The smell of food made his stomach growl. 

“Is this Tokyo?” he asked. 

“The good side of it, yes. I’m Renee,” she said and Andrew had the faintest idea that that hadn’t always been her name.

“Andrew.” He started walking through the alley, peaking at the restaurants and the people eating and being loud.

They got out of the alley and into a wide road. Skyscrapers were rising all around them and flashing billboards were making Andrew’s head hurt again. “Do you know what we are?” he asked. 

“No,” Renee replied. “We just are.” 

_ We just are _ , Andrew echoed in his head. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ch. 4 will be up on the 15th (on Tuesday)!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: blood, graphic description of murder.

Dan Wilds was tired. She had a day job and she had a night job. She had gotten used to the heat, more or less, but she couldn’t stand the dust. Dan had now learnt to distinguish between the winds; she knew that if it was coming from the east, the south and everything in between, it meant the atmosphere would be filled with dust from Sahara and the skies would turn a dull red; the colour of watered down blood. 

Dan wished she didn’t know that colour and she wished she hadn’t been forced to live in Morocco and know all about the winds and the dust. But she could do nothing about it now. 

She was writing a song about her life. The rhythm of it was really troubling her, although she knew she wanted it to be calm. In contrast with her life. Dan had a favourite spot for writing, under the trees, next to the Church of the Sacred Heart.

Her phone rang just as she was tearing yet another page off her notebook. 

“Hey, Na, what’s up?” She replied while furiously scribbling at the next page. This time she would get it right. 

“I told you not to call me Na. It’s Na-jib. Show some respect to your boss,  _ Dalila, _ ” the voice from the other end replied. 

“You don’t use my name, I don’t use yours,” she said. “What is it?” Dan started putting her things into her bag.

“I need you to come earlier tonight. Zahira called in sick.”

She started walking away from the Cathedral. “Will you pay me overtime?” she asked. 

Najib sighed. “I will.” Dan could almost see him rubbing his eyes. He always did that when he had to deal with her.

“Deal,” she said and hung up the phone.

  
  


The club wasn’t far. It was a wise choice operating next to the port. Most of their customers were sailors or captains. It was quite an unattractive place for tourists. Some women came too, some of them dressed as men, probably for their own protection. Dan could spot them with a glance. Sometimes, she really wanted to quit dancing and just go and drink and talk to them. Would their stories be sad like hers? Would they cry when they think of home? Or did they think of the sea as their home? 

At night, Dan worked as a dancer. But at night, that wasn’t her name. Hennessey stepped on the stage and everyone cheered and she was so tired of this job. It wasn’t that she hated it, but it wasn’t what she wanted to do in her life either. The only thing Dan had always ever wanted was to write music and teach kids how to play exy. These little gremlins loved to hit each other with their sticks. 

She usually finished work at around 4am and just helped around at the bar until the sun came out and she could walk home alone. But that night she happened to meet someone. She could swear there was no one sitting on that table a moment before, but as she turned to look at the door, she saw him with the corner of her eye, sitting on the table next to the toilet. 

He looked… as if he didn’t belong. His brows were knitted together and his eyes were searching the place. Looking everywhere at once, taking it all in. He looked  _ disorientated _ . Dan didn’t technically work as a waitress, but she decided to go take his order. She just felt like something was pulling her towards him. 

He was black, though darker than she was, and his clothes looked strange. Too many layers for this kind of weather.  _ Maybe he’s lost,  _ she thought. He reminded her of these new sailors that sometimes wandered around the city. Just one look at them and you could see they didn’t know how to deal with any of this yet. He looked like that. Like a fish out of the water. 

“Can I get you something?” she asked, but he didn’t seem to notice her. “Sir?” she tried again, this time leaning a bit and moving her hand in front of his face. His eyes landed on her face and he flinched as if he had just woken up.

He smiled awkwardly and scratched his neck. “I know this will sound weird, but where exactly am I?” 

At first, Dan thought he was mocking her, for whatever reason. His eyes were still wandering around and his mouth was hanging slightly open. He really looked like he didn’t know where he was. Dan frowned. 

“You are in the  _ Ruins _ club,” she said. 

He smiled again. “No, I actually meant in which part of the world are we. In which country are you right now?”

This question took her by surprise. Dan was ready to answer when someone touched her shoulder. It was one of the waitresses, Sara. She looked at the table and then back at Dan. 

“Are you alright?” she asked. “Who are you talking to?” She was looking at Dan with worry and confusion. Instinctively, Dan also turned to look at the table. 

“She can’t see me,” he said. 

Now, Dan’s confused expression was matching Sara’s. “There is no one at the table?” she asked Sara, the man, no one, everyone. 

“Are you asking me?” Sara said. “No, there is no one there. Dan, are you alright?”

Sara was saying something after that, but Dan barely heard it. Her head was spinning and she could feel a headache coming. Her vision became blurry. 

“I just need to sit down for a bit,” she mumbled and collapsed on the chair opposite from the man. And he was there. He was staring at her and he was  _ there _ . 

Sara said something about getting her a glass of water and left. “Are you really not here? Who are you? Am I going mad?” she asked, her eyes fixed at him. 

“I’m Matt, and no, I’m technically not here. But I am real,” he replied. 

“You’re in Bristol. In the UK,” she whispered, having no idea where this knowledge came from. He was smiling again. Matt, apparently, extended his arm and patted her head, in a way only her family used to do. 

“Yes, I am,” he said. “Just breathe. You’ll get used to it. You’ll meet more like us.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, still suspicious. Maybe Dan was losing her mind after all. It wouldn’t be a surprise. 

“I haven’t really figured it out yet, but we are now connected somehow. Did you have a weird dream a couple of days ago? About a church and a man?” 

Yes, she did have a weird dream like that. The pain in her head was getting stronger. 

“Well, it wasn’t a dream,” he continued and Dan nodded. “I think that’s when we were born. I found the church. It’s in Bristol.” 

Dan felt like her head was going to explode. “Stop talking,” she said, closing her eyes. “I think I need a drink.”

Matt got up. “I think you just need some fresh air. Come on, let’s get out of here.” He started walking towards the door. 

“Wait!” Dan shouted and followed him. She didn’t even notice when the world around her changed. “Where are we going?” she asked. 

It was almost 5am and the sky had started turning a lighter blue. Cold air hit her as soon as they stepped outside and she rubbed her arms with her palms. 

“At the Castle Park,” Matt replied. “I was in the middle of my morning run when I saw you.”

“There is no such park in Casablanca,” she said.

“There is in Bristol.”

Dan suddenly stopped and looked around her. She wasn’t in Casablanca anymore. She wasn’t even in Morocco. There were no cargo ships to be seen and no dust in the sky. They were walking on an empty road and the buildings around them were made of red bricks. Dan had only ever seen places like this in photos. 

A loud laugh escaped her. She wasn’t in Morocco anymore. She really wasn’t. It was almost like a huge weight was lifted off her chest. Dan took a deep breath. “I’ve never been to Europe!” she exclaimed. 

Matt was looking at her with curiosity and with a certain sparkle in his eyes that she didn’t want to think about at that moment. He led her to the park. It was almost like the trees were a different green there. 

“All colours look different early in the morning,” Matt said as if he sensed her thoughts. “Brighter, prettier.”

She hummed in agreement. They sat down on the damp grass. The chillness of the early morning grounded her. They didn’t talk. They didn’t need to. There was a certain kind of silent understanding that one can only experience with their childhood friends. Dan felt like she could breathe again. 

“I might write a song about this,” she said as the sun was coming out.

  
  


Life went on. She met another boy not long after. Freckles spread all over his reddish cheeks and nose, and his blond hair was a contrast to his tanned skin. Everything about him was a lie — even his name. But he had chosen it himself and Dan respected that. 

He was running. She wasn’t sure from whom or what. Maybe he was just running away from himself. Dan tried to help. Neil reminded her a lot of herself at an age she thought fleeting was always the best option. 

Her family lived in the worst parts of Cape Town. She hadn’t seen them in three years. Danielle Wilds was in love once. A handsome boy, who wanted to become a swimmer. Drugs found their way into his hands, the way they always do, and at first everything went well, the way it always does. 

Everything went well, until the Moriyamas arrived. They were different. They were  _ strange.  _ They appeared out of the blue one day, with the police backing them up. Their black silk suits glimmered under the sun of South Africa and red soil dirted their shoes. 

Most of the other gangs withdrew, surrendered to them. But not all of them. And that’s when Dan’s life started going downhill. Will, her boyfriend, was caught up in a war that wasn’t his to fight. They killed him. Shot him right in the middle of his forehead and Dan stared at his lifeless body for what must have been hours. Staring at the blood coming out of that terrible hole that shouldn’t be there and silently crying. 

She was hiding under the bed, she wasn’t supposed to be there, she wasn’t supposed to  _ see  _ any of that. Yet, she did. And they eventually figured it out. But instead of killing her right away, they offered her a job. And she fled. At the time, it felt like that was her only option. And maybe it was. 

But the nightmares kept coming every night, with no sign of stopping. She couldn’t forget — or maybe she didn’t  _ want to  _ forget just yet. The faces of the Moriyamas were still burning inside her mind. She saw the every time she closed her eyelids, every time there was darkness. 

She certainly didn’t expect to see any of them in Morocco, though. Dan had underestimated how far their influence went. 

Her shift had just ended and she was drinking alone at the club when he entered the place. She didn’t know his name, or anything about him really, but it was unmistakably  _ him _ . The one that had shot Will. 

His black eyes scanned the room and didn’t linger more than two seconds on her, but she felt her breath cut short anyway. Dan was suddenly hyper-aware of her every move — even blinking felt dangerous. He sat down on a table, his back to her. With great effort, she moved towards the bathroom, never taking her eyes off him. Her palms were sweating and the outside world had suddenly become awfully quiet. 

Her chest only started rising and falling again when she closed the door of the bathroom stall in front of her. Dan’s eyes were wide and if someone were to look at her at that moment, they’d think she looked exactly like a deer caught in the headlights, moments before the car were to hit it and the poor animal was to be left bleeding in the side of the road and die alone. 

A million thoughts were running through her mind, when someone opened the door, hitting her knee with it. Her heart almost stopped. But it wasn’t _ him _ . It was another man and they locked eyes only for a second but it was enough for Dan to know something was wrong. His eyes widened and he mumbled a  _ sorry _ before closing the door again. 

It didn’t take him long to return. Soft knocking startled Dan once again. 

“Sorry to bother you,” he started, “but where am I?” 

As if she was in a dream, Dan got up and opened the door. She now had time to take a good look at the strange man; he was tall and he looked tired. His cheeks were red, same as his eyes, and he had an accent she didn’t recognise. 

“You’re one of us,” she said. A statement. She knew it was the truth. 

He looked at her more carefully now and took his time to answer, as if he was weighing his words one by one. 

“Yes, I suppose I am,” he finally replied. 

“Dan.” Taking a step back, she sat down on the toilet again. 

“Seth,” came the response. He turned his back at her for a moment and looked at his reflection on the mirror. “I look terrible,” he mumbled to himself, and then looked back to Dan. “So, why am I here?”

Dan didn't dare to come out of the bathroom stall. “Why are you asking me?”

“Well,” he started, “isn’t this how it works? One wants help and another one appears out of thin air?” 

She thought about it for a second. She caught herself biting her lower lip like she always does when deep in thought. What Seth said sounded about right — but not entirely correct. “I think there is more to it than just that,” she replied. 

“So, do you need my help or not?” Seth asked again.

“I suppose so,” she said.

He sighed. “I know there is a man outside. A man you had hoped not to see in your life ever again. Funny, isn’t it? Things never go quite as we want them to.”

“No, I wouldn’t say it’s funny really.”

“And what are you doing here? Hiding? Aren’t you  _ tired _ of hiding?” There was an arrogant grin on his face and Dan wanted to punch him right there, at the corner of his stupid mouth. 

“What am I supposed to do, huh?” she asked, her voice a bit louder than expected. Dan could hear her blood ringing in her ears. Her breathing was becoming quicker and quicker but at the same time more and more ragged. “Maybe I should go there and act like nothing happened,” she said, a little frantic. A loud, bitter laugh escaped her. “Or even better go work with them to save my life! Let them make me a drug dealer or sell me or whatever, just so they can kill me later. Now that sounds absolutely  _ dreamy _ !” 

Seth was in front of her before she could even see him move. “Hey,” he said, “breathe.”

Dan’s hands were trembling and a lump had risen in her throat. 

“I can’t,” she said, and again, “I can’t.”

Seth placed both of his hands on either side of her face. “I know you think the world is ending, but you still don’t get it do you?  _ You are not alone anymore _ . Isn’t that what you said to Neil? I know what it is like to live your life in fear. I know what it is like to have somebody you love getting killed right in front of you. Truth is, you will never forget it, but you will learn how to deal with it. Just start by breathing. Repeat after me; I am not alone, we’ll get through this together.”

“I am not alone. We will get through this together,” Dan whispered. 

“Now say it again,” he said. 

And Dan did. She said it again and again and again and at the end it almost felt like she was eight again and reciting a poem in school. And maybe, just maybe, she started believing it herself. 

They waited in the bathroom together for the club to close and the sun to come out. Seth walked home with her and he was gone as soon as her head touched her pillow and Dan sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little bit shorter than usual because I had to cut down a scene I had planned, but I still hope you like it! Next chapter will be up on Saturday:)
> 
> TW: drugs, referred drug use.

Seth Bryan Gordon was unlovable. Or more accurately, he had spent most of his life thinking he was unlovable. Fast cars were the only thing nowadays that made him feel something, that made him feel  _ alive _ . On weekdays he worked as a driver at the most expensive hotel in Houston, on weekends he raced and wasted all his money on drugs. 

Sometimes he found it difficult distinguishing between hallucinations and reality. These days were the worst and after, he was left wondering whether it had all been a dream or there was something real in all the chaos. But he didn’t stop taking drugs and he didn’t stop racing. He was drawn to these things like a small fish drawn by the light of an anglerfish. 

The first time Seth saw one of them was a Sunday. The girl was sitting on the hood of his car — or at least it looked like it was his car. She looked oddly familiar. The neon lights were reflecting on her face and the music was too loud.  _ Maybe this is just another dream _ , Seth thought. 

But it didn’t feel like one. Then again, no dream felt like a dream. 

It was well past midnight and he had started drinking after the sun had set. But he hadn't taken any drugs and he rarely hallucinated when he had only been drinking. 

“Hi,” Seth said, heading towards the girl. She looked at him and it felt like her gaze pierced right through his body. 

“Hi,” she replied. “Are you Seth?”

At that, he froze. He had no friends or family. And he sure hadn’t met that girl before, not at work and not at a party. “Who’s asking?” he said, his expression suddenly wary. 

“Am I the first one you see?” she asked again, quite baffled. “I’m Allison,” she said as if it was a known fact and Seth should have known. 

“I don’t understand,” Seth replied and took a step back. He didn’t know why but he was suddenly scared. “Have we met before?” 

“You know me, just like I know you. We are one and the same.” She took a step forward. 

“Is this a dream?” Seth closed his eyes. It was a childish reaction, but he wasn’t high enough to deal with any of this. It must have been a funny image for anyone watching them; a guy over six-feet tall being confronted by a woman at least a foot shorter than him. 

He felt Allison gently touch his wrist. “You are safe,” she said. “Open your eyes,” and he did. 

They were standing in a kitchen. The lights were off and the music was only a distant sound now. As if someone was throwing a party at the other side of the block. Allison opened the fridge and grabbed a glass bottle of water. It wasn’t long before Seth’s hands started to sting from the cold, like small needles piercing the skin of his palms. 

He stared at Allison's hands, still holding the bottle, and then his gaze traveled up to her face and settled on her eyes. She was looking straight back at him. 

“It is not a dream,” she said. “Do you understand now?”

Seth didn’t know how, but he did.  _ We are one and the same.  _ “Yes,” he replied. “I understand.”

  
  


Seth woke up with a headache the next morning. Not something unusual after a party, but it somehow felt like  _ more _ . He didn’t see Allison or anyone else for a while. He almost started thinking that it was all a dream after all.  _ Almost _ . 

Until he met Renee. He had just returned to the hotel after driving a client to a restaurant, when he noticed it. There was a very small baggie underneath the passenger’s seat. The girl that had been sitting there must have dropped it when she got out of the car. Seth was now frozen in his seat in the underground parking lot, staring at the baggie and knowing exactly what it contained. He had taken enough drugs in his life to know that. 

He slowly reached under the seat and took it in his hands. Cocaine was expensive, and to have it handed over to you like that was pure luck. There was a small sun drawn on the back of the bag with what must have been a red marker. The rays of the sun were wavy and in the center of it there was a single red dot. Seth hadn’t seen anything like that before. 

“Don’t take it,” he heard a voice next to him.

Seth was so surprised that he jumped and hit his head on the roof of the car. There was a woman sitting in the passenger’s seat, though he could have sworn it was empty just a moment ago and he hadn’t heard the door open or close. She was staring at his hand and at the baggie he was holding. Seth instinctively closed his fist it. 

She tore her eyes away from his hand and looked at him straight in the eyes. Her gaze was unsettling and Seth wanted to look away. But he didn’t. Surprisingly, what caught his attention first wasn’t her hair, but her clothes. The stranger was wearing a white lab coat and protective glasses. And then something clicked in his brain. 

“You aren’t supposed to be here, aren’t you?” he asked. 

“Actually, I think  _ here _ is exactly where I’m supposed to be,” she replied. “I’m Renee.”

“I don’t understand,” Seth said. He was tired of not understanding. 

“My guess is I’m here because you need my help. Isn’t that how it works?” 

“I guess so,” Seth replied. He realized he was still gripping the steering wheel with his left hand. He let go of it and relaxed on his seat. Renee was carefully studying him. 

“Don’t take the bag,” she said again. “There was a red sun drawn into it, right? The dot in the middle means it has talc powder in it. Enough to go unnoticed, enough to be profitable, enough to slowly kill you.” 

Seth opened his fist again and looked at the bag. “How do you know that?” he asked. 

Renee laughed at that. She extended her hand and took the cocaine from Seth’s hand. She studied it for a second, before she replied. “I make this.” 

And Seth could somehow see it. Renee, wearing the same protective glasses, in a brightly lit room. She had two containers of powders in front of her and a third one filled with plastic bags. Her brows were knitted and sweat was running down her temples. She was slowly measuring and mixing the two powders and then carefully putting them into bags. 

“What—” Seth started saying, but she interrupted him. 

“Throw away the bag,” she said. “Someone is calling me, I need to go.” 

Renee vanished and Seth was left alone again. He wrapped the bag on a tissue and threw it on a dumpster on his way out of the parking lot.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this fic turned me into a Kevin Day stan😔
> 
> TW: needles.

Kevin had started getting sick of coming across the name ‘Moriyama’ everywhere he looked. They had set up the perfect facade, appearing as businessmen and philanthropists, owning a number of orphanages all over the world, buying company after company and building factory after factory. It bothered Kevin that they were so big that no one knew exactly what they were doing, or no one cared enough to look it up. They had created such a fantastic maze of unimportant information surrounding their name that finding the truth about their business was nearly impossible. 

The Moriyamas were a crime organization — there was no doubt about that. He wished he’d figured it out sooner. Kevin grew up in one of their orphanages in New York and his achievements did nothing but boost their publicity. _Kevin Day, raised by the Moriyamas, yet another kid thriving under their care._ He felt sick just by thinking of it. 

His mother, Kayleigh Day died in a car accident. Kevin sometimes found himself unable to remember what she looked like. He had only been eight when it happened. Later, he discovered that she knew the Moriyamas from when she was studying in Japan. That’s when his obsession with them started. Kevin was sure they had killed her. The Moriyamas had killed his mother. He had to make them pay and make sure they wouldn’t do anything like that ever again. 

When he found out about his mother’s connection to them, he had woken Jean up and told him everything about it. Kevin and Jean had always been two sides of the same coin; both raised by the Moriyamas, but while Kayleigh would never willingly leave her son, the Moreau’s did exactly that. Kevin wasn’t sure which one was worse. They had only been separated once when Jean went to the UK for a year, back when they still were in high school.

Jean was now sitting opposite him at the kitchen table. They were supposed to be studying for their upcoming tests, but Kevin was finding it very hard to focus on his notes on precolonial Africa. His head was filled with thoughts of different people; images of places he had never been to, fragments of languages he never learnt, memories of friends he never had. It was making him nauseous. He got up and headed towards his bedroom. Above his desk there were four bookshelves, crammed full of history and computer science books that the wooden shelves had started to bend under their weight. Kevin reached out and took one off the higher shelf. The cover of the textbook read, _“A brief history of the human species”_.

“Wasn’t that a first year class?” Jean asked, eyeing the book, confusion written all over his face, when Kevin came back into the kitchen with it.

“Yes, it is,” he replied. 

Jean got up and refilled their mugs with coffee. “Didn’t you hate that class?”

“Yes, I did,” Kevin said. There was a chart of the different human species in the first chapter. “Do you ever think about how there’s so much we don’t know about this world?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the chart. 

Jean stopped writing whatever it was he was writing in his notebook and drew his eyebrows together. “Yes, sometimes,” he said, staring at the book in Kevin’s hands. “You seem distracted.”

“It’s too loud in here,” Kevin whispered and Jean knew what he meant. “I know how it sounds, but— I’ve been seeing things lately. People and places. I know I sound like I’ve gone mad. But I looked it up. The things I see— they are _real_ .” He raised his eyes and looked at Jean. “I have no idea how I can see them. Andrew Minyard. I met him a couple of days ago. I found his driver’s license. He _exists_. But he lives in San Francisco.” Kevin took a deep breath. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy, but other times... it feels like that’s how things were always supposed to be.”

Jean didn’t say anything for a long time. Kevin closed the book and opened his laptop. He had been trying to find Neil for the last three days, but it was proving very difficult, even for him. There were only a few documents with his name on it, all dated from the last six months. It was like he didn’t exist before that. And for some reason, it was hard to search for his memories and his thoughts. Kevin kept hitting a wall. 

He clicked open the folder he had with the records and official documents he could find of Andrew and Matt. Kevin turned his laptop around so Jean could see, but the man ignored it. Instead he looked at Kevin.

“I trust you,” he said. 

Kevin smiled. He was about to turn the laptop back to him, when Jean grabbed his hand, stopping him. His eyes had fallen onto the screen. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” he said. “Matt is a cop?” 

Kevin’s eyes widened. “You know him?”

“Remember when I went to the UK for a year? We went to the same school.” Jean laughed and a weight was lifted off Kevin’s heart. “Can’t believe he became a cop.”

Kevin laughed too. “Funny how it all works, isn’t it?”

  
  


Kevin hadn’t seen Matt in a while. He’d been busy studying and searching for whatever information he could find on what was happening to them. He was growing more and more tired trying to distinguish fake internet stories from helpful ones.

Jean had gone to buy ice cream for both of them, so Kevin was alone, miserably picking at his food when Matt showed up. He sat down opposite him on the table and buried his face in his arms. He was wearing his pyjamas again and strands of his hair were sticking out in odd directions. 

“Still no clues?” Kevin asked. 

Matt groaned. “I know David’s close. I can feel it. But I keep hitting a wall,” came his voice, muffled by the fabric of his clothes. They’d had the same talk a dozen times since they decided to work on this case together. It had started becoming a habit. Matt then sharply raised his head and looked at Kevin. “Did you meet anyone else?”

Kevin was taken aback by the question. His hand froze with his fork halfway to his mouth. He put it back down on his plate and looked at Matt.

“Yes, I did,” he said. “Andrew and Neil.”

Matt rubbed his eyes. “Who are they?” 

“They are short,” Kevin said, and he ignored Matt's unimpressed look. He was about to expand on this when two men appeared and sat on their table. Matt immediately knew who they were. 

“Why are we here now?” Andrew asked Kevin with a raised eyebrow.

“Why are you asking me?” Kevin snapped. 

“Who is this?” Neil asked, ignoring the others and pointing at Matt. 

Matt laughed and introduced himself.

“I’ve seen you before,” Neil said, narrowing his eyes at Matt. “You were in the church. In the dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Kevin said. They all had figured it out by now, but he felt like he had to say it again. “Anyway, did you meet anyone else?” he asked Matt.

“Dan and Allison,” he replied and as he said so, two women appeared next to him. They both had almost the same height, but that’s where their similarities stopped. Dan’s skin was dark, her hair short and her eyes black. Allison was tanned and freckles covered her face and shoulders. Her hair were blonde and her eyes grey. They both walked with the air of someone who wasn’t afraid. 

“Is this how it works now?” Andrew said, a hint of irritation at his voice. “You just think of someone and they appear? What kind of bullshit is that?” 

“Don’t come, if you don’t want to,” Allison said. They sat down too. 

“How many of us are there?” Neil asked, rubbing his neck. 

“Renee is missing,” Andrew said and everyone turned to look at him. 

“Who’s Renee?” Kevin asked. He could already feel a headache coming. 

"I'm Renee," said a voice from behind him. Kevin turned to see an Asian woman with colorful hair. Her voice was soft and her movements delicate but fast. She waved at the others and took a seat beside Andrew.

“Anyone else?” Matt asked, looking around at all of them. 

“Seth is missing,” Renee said and a tall man came and sat next to her. 

“Are we having a party or something?” he asked. “I’m Seth.”

“Please, tell me that’s all of us now,” Dan said. 

“Yes, you are all here now,” an oddly familiar voice said. They all quickly turned their heads towards where the voice came from.

It was him. His figure was flicking in and out of existence. A torn and dirty hospital robe was covering his body. His hair was disheveled and sweat ran down his forehead. His eyes were red and his wrists were bloody, as if he had been tied. It was him. The man from their dream. 

Kevin felt a sharp pain on the back of his head. “It’s you,” he whispered. He slowly got up and started walking towards him. David looked even worse up close. 

“I don’t have much time,” he said, and it looked like he used up all his energy to do so. “I’ll be on blockers and sedated again in less than three minutes. I don’t know how long I can keep them out of my head. BPO is coming for you. They caught me and now they are coming for each and every one of you.”

David was breathing hard. He reached for something the others couldn't see until his hands wrapped around it and a syringe flickered into existence. He looked at it for a long moment before — in a sudden burst of movement the others couldn’t anticipate — he stabbed his neck with the needle. 

“I have to go,” he said, panting. 

“Wait! What’s the BPO?” Kevin asked, but David was already gone. There was another streak of hot pain behind his left eye and a gasp escaped his mouth. 

“The Biologic Preservation Organization,” came two voices at the same time. Neil and Jean. The former’s gaze quickly turned towards the latter, startled by the man’s appearance and his knowledge. 

Kevin hadn’t even noticed Jean was back, but he was now standing frozen next to their table, looking at him with a frown. “Where did you hear that?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper. He, Kevin quickly realized, could not see any of the others.

Suddenly, Matt spoke. “Wait, that’s Jean Moreau!” he exclaimed. “I knew he reminded me of something.” 

“How do you know that?” Kevin asked, ignoring Matt. He wasn’t sure who the question was aimed at.. “What is BPO?” He stumbled back to the table and sat down. His head was going to explode. 

“My father works for them,” said Neil just as Jean answered, “My parents work for them.” 

Neil vanished before Kevin could ask him anything more. 

“Look,” Jean continued, carefully studying Kevin’s expression. “I don’t understand what’s happening, but you have to stay away from them.”

Kevin closed his eyes. “Didn’t your parents work for the Moriyamas?” he asked. 

Upon hearing that, both Renee and Dan sprung up. “Did you just say the Moriyamas?” Renee asked. She was suddenly tense and her voice filled with venom. 

“What the _fuck_ is happening here? How do you know the Moriyamas?” Dan said. Her face was twisted by anger and surprise and she spat out her words like they disgusted her. 

“How do _you_ know them?” Kevin asked.

Jean was staring at the place Dan was stood, but to him there was no one there. “Who are you talking to?”

Kevin didn’t dare tear his eyes away from the two women. The pain was growing stronger and his vision was going blurry. “I’ll explain later.” 

“How do you know the Moriyamas?” Renee asked again, ignoring everyone else. Her eyes were focused on Kevin. 

“Anyone care to explain what the fuck is happening and who are they?” Seth asked, irritation seeping in his voice. 

Kevin’s head was ringing. He closed his eyes and opened them again, but the blurriness didn’t seem to go away. 

“Hey, Kevin, you don’t look that good,” he heard Andrew’s voice coming from far away. 

The world turned black before he could answer. 

Kevin tried to find Dan or Renee the next day, but he couldn’t. His thoughts were all over the place and he found concentrating very hard. Jean kept following him around the house in case he fainted again and it had started getting on his nerves. They were eating lunch when he saw the textbook again. That useless textbook, written by his useless professor. But then, he remembered something. 

Back when he was a freshman, that same professor had said something that Kevin kept thinking for a while. 

" _We can never be sure about our true origins or our full potential. Things we once considered to be merely science fiction might be proven to be real.”_

Kevin opened his laptop and looked him up. Apparently, he was still teaching the same class at the same university. He grabbed his jacket and keys. The university was only a short walk away from his apartment. Maybe it was pointless, but asking surely wouldn’t hurt. Maybe the professor knew something after all. 

It didn’t take long for him to find another student and convince them to let him in with their ID, since his wasn’t valid anymore. Only a few people would resist his charming smile. The auditorium was quieter than it should have been when Kevin arrived. More than a hundred students were inside and they all seemed to be hanging from the professor’s each word. Kevin wondered if he was the only one that found that class especially boring when he had to take it. The truth was, it was a very interesting topic, but Professor Brown used to spend most of his time speculating, rather than speaking about facts, evidence and actual history. Back then, Kevin found it infuriating at first and then just boring, but now the man’s words echoed differently in his ears. 

He took a seat at the back of the room. His plan was to wait till the lecture was over and then go and talk to him, although he still had no idea what he wanted to ask. 

“The one thing that has allowed us to survive and thrive as a species is lying,” Professor Brown was saying. “We are able to hide our true intentions and beliefs. It’s the best defense mechanism we have developed.”

Kevin laid back on his seat and crossed his arms. _Interesting,_ he thought. 

“Imagine if there were people who could know every thought of yours, read your mind, know your feelings, see what you see and hear what you hear,” the professor continued and students kept furiously scribbling in their notebooks. “Imagine if you could do the same thing to them. There would be no secrets, no privacy, individuality would start getting erased and so would individualism.” 

Kevin was listening carefully. He knew a little too well what Professor Brown was describing. And he was talking about it with such ease and accuracy that Kevin couldn’t help but think he knew how it was too. 

“But if that could somehow happen, if people formed such strong bonds, it would be far harder to turn them into each other. And that’s a problem, because a great part of our world works based on one dogma; divide and conquer. That’s why if people like that existed, they would be the biggest threat to our society as we know it.” Professor Brown then laughed. “But people like that don’t exist.”

Kevin had frozen in his seat. Every word that man spat out was one more needle going through his skull. He watched the professor laugh and in that moment, he really hated him. _He knows_ , he thought, _he must know_ . _And he’s standing there mocking us and telling people what a great threat we are. He is standing there teaching people how to hate._

He didn’t hear a word for the rest of the lecture. Kevin was too busy thinking about how and what he should ask the professor and boiling in his anger. He was tapping his foot and counting down the minutes to the end of the class and thinking about Professor Brown’s words over and over again. _If people like that existed, they would be the biggest threat to our society._ Kevin scoffed. _They fear us,_ he thought. _Their bodies reek of fear and cowardice and they want to kill us because they are weak._

A girl sitting next to him gave him a nasty look. He was fidgeting way too much. Kevin was restless and as soon as the class ended he jumped off his seat and sprinted to the front of the auditorium. 

“Very interesting lecture,” Kevin said to Professor Brown who was gathering his papers and ignoring him. “What did you mean when you said that about lying and fear?” he tried again. 

The professor dragged his eyes on Kevin's face. Everything on his expression made it clear that he couldn't care less about a random student's questions, but something in his eyes came alight. “Just some food for thought. Mere speculations and hypotheses. But I don't recall mentioning the word _fear_.”

Kevin smiled and at that moment, he was sure he looked like a very angry wolf. “No, I suppose you didn't. Do you really think there are people like the ones you described?” 

“No, I don't think so.” Professor Brown closed his messenger bag and put it over his shoulder. “And even if there were,” he continued, “I don't think they would have survived that long.” 

The threat was crystal clear in Kevin's mind. But he saw the professor's hand fidgeting with the strap of his bag and his eyes traveling around the room for only a fleeting second and he knew, he knew that he too was scared. 

“Interesting,” Kevin said, “because in your book you mentioned we can never eliminate the possibility of different species of humans living amongst us. What did you mean by that?” 

“Nothing much. Just never say never as they say," the professor said and then he leaned closer to Kevin, as if to get a better look at him. Of course, he didn’t recognize him. At that moment, Kevin was glad he always made a point of avoiding Professor Brown when he took this class. “Young man, you sure are asking a lot of questions.”

“Curiosity has always been my strong point.” Kevin narrowed his eyes, but he made himself smile, as if to charm an explanation from Professor Brown. “Isn't it your job to give answers?” 

Professor Brown smiled too, but it was devoid of any joy. “Sorry, but I have another class,” he said, brushing against Kevin and walking away. 

Kevin watched him go, and the frustration he felt was almost overwhelming. Deep down he knew he was being too bold and obvious and that he ought to be scared. But he wasn't. Kevin was going to find out the truth no matter what. He wouldn't let anyone stand in his way.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this is already half-way done. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter <3 
> 
> TW: drugs.

Allison Reynolds didn’t like how she was living her life. Her parents had always disapproved of it, but she thought that by doing whatever she wanted, she would finally feel happy. But Allison wasn’t happy. There was a sort of emptiness in her heart that she couldn’t shake, no matter how hard she tried. She didn’t have any friends. Allison’s life was something to pass through, not a place to stay. It was fireworks and parties and expensive cars and designer clothes. It was light and fire. But parties always ended and light dimmed and fire burned out and at the end of the day, she was standing alone in the middle of a wrecked house. 

Allison didn’t like how she was living her life, but she had chosen it herself. She was an actress and she had always wanted to be an actress. And she was good at it. Lying and being dramatic had always been a part of who she was. But something was missing, something was always missing. 

The beer in her hand was getting warm. She got up from the armchair she was occupying and made her way towards the kitchen. The music was loud, pounding against her body and her brain. People were dancing and falling over, their drinks spilling on the carpet. The air was warm and heavy. The pool and the first floor of the villa were filled with people. She recognized only a few of them, but she couldn’t remember their names and she definitely didn’t care enough to ask them again.

Allison made her way to the second floor. Everything was darker there: no flashing lights, no disco balls, no neon signs. She could still hear the music coming from downstairs, but it was muffled and distant. She opened a door, hoping to find a quiet room to relax in for a bit. A sigh of relief escaped her when she realized the door she opened led to an empty bedroom. 

She stumbled towards the bed and lay there. It was too big for just one person so she extended her hands and legs, trying to take up as much space as she could. The window next to the bed was open and the curtains were flapping in and out of it. The room was filled with heavy furniture, their golden details shining in the dim moonlight. 

“I hate it here,” Allison whispered to herself. It reminded her too much of her house and the bedroom that her parents had made for her. 

A weight settled at the edge of the bed but Allison only moved to the side.

“It looks pretty cool to me.” Dan said. She looked over her shoulder at Allison before lying down beside her. “What’s bothering you?” 

“I don’t know,” Allison whispered in the dark. “Maybe everything.”

Dan hummed. “Let me braid your hair,” she said and pulled herself up. 

Allison studied her dark silhouette, sitting cross-legged next to her. “Okay, whatever,” she said, pulling herself up too and turning her back at Dan. “Do you even have enough light to do that?”

“Don’t question my braiding skills,” Dan said and started sectioning Allison’s hair.

Dan’s gentle fingers went through her soft hair and Allison realized she couldn’t remember the last time her mother had done that for her. Maybe she had never braided her hair or maybe it was so long ago that the memory had faded away and had become a dream. The slow tugging and pulling at her hair was grounding and a strange sort of calmness washed over her. 

“I know you feel like you don’t have anyone, but you have us now. You know that, right?” Dan’s voice was soft and distant to Allison’s ears, as if it came from another time, from another place, but deep down she knew that it was true. 

“I know,” she said, her eyes closed and her heart beating. 

Allison hadn’t felt that young or that alive in a while. The emptiness inside of her heart had started being slowly filled. 

  
  


Allison was disappointed at how bad Matt was at lying. Someone had been arrested on the same road as the church was and he was being held in Matt’s police station. It was a young man, not older than twenty-five, ginger hair, freckles, almost as tall as Matt himself. He was caught dealing drugs and if Seth’s speculations were right, he must have been dealing on the same road for a while. Which meant that he might have seen at least  _ something _ helpful. 

Matt had to act fast. They weren’t going to keep him there forever. He could have just gone into the holding cell and started questioning him, but Matt wanted to follow the law and ask for the commissioner's permission first, since he wasn’t directly involved in that case. Allison tried to convince him to lie about why he wanted to talk to the man. They still didn’t have any clear evidence that a crime had been committed inside the church or at least that something shady had happened. But Matt wouldn’t listen. Sometimes Allison wondered how and why he became a cop if he was going to always play by the rules. It was unusual to say at least.

Allison sat down next to him. The commissioner’s expression was neutral for as long as Matt was explaining the situation to him. He didn’t say anything about the dream, but he mentioned having a hunch about that church and getting the security footage of a nearby store. He explained what he found and why he wants to talk to that guy they arrested yesterday. Matt stopped talking and there was silence. 

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Allison said. 

The commissioner was staring at him, studying him, probably trying to decide on what to say. He extended his hand, grabbed his mug and took a sip of his coffee, which he swallowed slowly. He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at Matt.

“So, what you are telling me,” he started, “is that you just Mtook the security tapes of a shop because you had a  _ hunch, _ and now you want to harass someone for something you still have no evidence that happened. Is that what you’re telling me?” 

“I do have evidence,” Matt calmly said. “The video has been tampered with. The woman at the store told us that two men threatened her to get hold of it. They pretended to be from the Intelligence.”

Allison noticed the commissioner’s jaw clench and something twist in his eyes. 

“Boyd, how do you know they were pretending? Did you see their badges or the absence of them yourself? And did you know the video had been tampered with when you asked for it without a warrant?”

“The woman said—” 

“The woman said!” the commissioner suddenly erupted. He slammed his hand down on his desk and looked at Matt with a face distorted by anger. “Did you even stop to consider that she might be lying? You know well enough that we don’t meddle with the Intelligence’s business! You know it’s my last month here and I won’t let you screw up my promotion.”

Matt’s voice was icy cold when he spoke again. “But we can’t just ignore this. Something happened in that church.” 

He was still, perfectly still with the exception on his chest rising and falling rapidly. It was the first time Allison was seeing Matt get angry like that. 

“Keep pushing this and you’ll get suspended,” the commissioner said. “Stay out of things you weren’t meant to mess with. The Intelligence’s business is the Intelligence's business and you are not going to be the one to turn them against me and my station, all because you had a  _ hunch _ .” 

Matt didn’t need to hear more than that and he knew when to stop. As soon as the door closed behind him, he turned to Allison. 

“You’re on,” he said, in a way that reminded her more of Seth or Andrew than himself. 

And just like that, Allison was helping Matt lie once again. Matt was friends with the guard of the holding cells. It wasn’t hard for Allison to ask for a favor and the guard didn’t seem to care enough if they had permission or not. 

The young man was sitting in his cell, curled up on a corner of the bench. Matt — or rather, Allison — slowly sat next to him. His name was Ryan and he looked scared.  _ Probably just another poor kid trying to survive _ , Allison thought. 

“I have a couple of questions for you,” she said. “They have nothing to do with why you were arrested, but you might be able to help with another case.” She signaled him to follow her. Ryan didn’t say anything, but he let her guide him out of the cell and into an interrogation room. 

Allison sat down opposite him. “On the night of the twenty-seventh, were you hanging out in Campbell Street? Did you see anything strange? Anyone going in or out of that old church?”

Matt winced at that. She wasn’t doing it right. These were all leading questions. Allison must have noticed his frustration, but she ignored it. 

Realizing she wouldn’t get any answers, she got up and dragged her chair to Ryan’s side of the table. He averted his eyes. “Helping us is helping yourself. I know you weren’t caught with much on you, but you should know we have a whole storage room filled with all kinds of incriminating objects.” The threat in her words was clear. Ryan looked at her with wide eyes, filled with disgust. 

“If I tell you what I saw, are you going to leave me alone?” He kept looking around the room, avoiding the sight of Allison. His voice was low and hurried. 

“I will,” Allison replied. 

Ryan finally looked at her and studied her expression. His chest was rising and falling quickly and he was rubbing his palms on his jeans. 

“It was around two o’clock in the morning when I saw three men exit the church. Two of them were heavily armed and carrying a stretcher. There was a man on it. I don’t think he was dead. They got into a white van and drove away.” 

“Can you describe any of them?” 

“I didn’t see the man on the stretcher clearly, but I’m almost sure one of the other ones was ginger and tall. That’s all I could make out in the dark.”

“Okay, thank you,” Allison said. She got up and Ryan followed her back into his holding cell. 

“Fuck you,” he said as she was leaving. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Matt said as soon as they got into the bathroom. Allison checked the stalls and they were all empty. She turned to look at Matt. He was staring at his reflection in one of the mirrors, avoiding her gaze. 

“What do you mean?” she asked, a slight smile forming in her face. “Maybe it’s not much, but we had to try. At least not someone else confirmed what we all saw.” 

Matt’s grip tightened on the sink and his knuckles turned white. “You can’t go throwing your weight around and threatening people like that,” he said. “You just told the poor kid that we were going to incriminate him if he didn’t cooperate. This isn’t a fucking movie Allison.” 

She raised her eyebrows and with three quick steps, she stood next to Matt. “I know it’s not a fucking movie. But that’s how the world works. And especially your job. Wake up, Matt.” 

He finally turned to look at her. His jaw was clenched and his eyes dark. “You act like this is a game, but  _ I  _ am the one wearing this uniform and you are wearing my face when you do shit like that. Maybe that’s how the rest of the world works but I refuse to do the same shit.”

“You,” Allison started, pushing at his shoulder with her index finger, “are a cop. You should have thought about all that before you became one. You will either accept that your kind are dickheads and that’s how they operate or you better fucking quit.” 

Matt opened his mouth to say something, but Allison had already disappeared. 

  
  


Allison couldn’t stop thinking about what she said to Matt. She didn’t know why she told him all that. It was true, she  _ did _ believe every word that came out of her mouth, but Matt didn’t deserve it. She knew, she  _ knew _ that he wasn’t like the others and that he only ever wanted to do good. Maybe it was about time someone told him all that, but fighting with him still hurt. Maybe she, herself, was ashamed of acting like that. Allison knew she had fucked up. 

She went to find Seth. The loud music and the flashing lights drowned out her thoughts about Matt and Ryan and police stations. She grabbed Seth’s drink out of his hand and quickly downed it. 

“Someone’s not feeling well,” he said with a smirk on his face. 

“Shut up.” Allison grabbed his hand. “Come on. Let’s dance,” she said. And they did. Seth disappeared into the crowd after a while and came back with a brand new bottle of vodka. It was nice. The people dancing, the alcohol in their veins, Seth’s warmth. She did feel a little better. 

After a couple of hours, they stopped dancing and stumbled towards Seth’s car. As soon as the doors closed, he took a baggie out of the glove box. There was a while pill inside and he took it between his fingers. He opened his mouth but right before he placed it on his tongue, someone grabbed his wrist. 

“Didn’t I tell you not to use that shit?” Renee said from the backseat. “What’s wrong with you two?”

Renee let go of Seth’s wrist and all three of them were suddenly standing in a dark room, illuminated only by four screens. Jean and Kevin were sitting in front of these screens and arguing about something, while Neil and Kevin were sitting on the couch next to them, whispering to each other. 

Allison felt slightly disoriented because of the sudden change of environment, but she had started getting used to it. “So what are y’all doing?” she asked, falling on the couch next to the others. 

“Trying to hack the Moriyamas,” Renee replied as she stood above Kevin, her eyes focused on the screens. 

“Actually, we’re going to hack their dealers’ phones, which will probably be way less protected,” Kevin said. “They will carry our trojan horse and spread it to everyone they text or call.” He turned to Jean. “Allison and Seth are here.” 

“Hello, wherever you are,” Jean said, not tearing his eyes away from the screens. 

Allison studied them all. Kevin and Jean were furiously typing and the monitors in front of them were filled with rows after rows of commands that barely meant anything to her. Neil and Andrew were whispering about someone called Lola and exchanging quick glances. Renee, her heart beating fast, was painted in the pale blue light of the screens, half there, half on the other side of the world. Seth, the alcohol still running through his veins, was watching them all, his eyes jumping from one person to another, confused but focused and always trying to understand. She wanted to laugh. This, Allison realized, was her family now. The feeling of belonging wasn't something she was used to. To feel it now was a disquieting thing, but she thought perhaps she liked it. 

“Oh shit, oh fuck,” Jean cursed under his breath.

Renee leaned over Jean’s shoulder to take a better look at his screen and Kevin craned his neck. “What’s happening?”she asked. 

“Fucking hell,” Kevin whispered. “They’ve placed some kind of really  _ really _ good security software into all their phones.”

“Fuck,” Jean said a little louder this time and jumped off his chair. He reached for a switch on the wall and turned on the lights. It blinded them all and Allison tried to cover her eyes. Jean dived under the desk where a mess of cords was and started unplugging the computers and monitors. Without the sound of them whirring in the background, the room was awfully quiet. 

“What just happened?” Andrew asked after a while. 

“They were going to track us back,” Kevin said. “Our best chance was to cut the connection.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “Who would have thought they’d be that careful even with the phones of their  _ lesser members _ .”

There was a knock on the door, but it wasn’t Kevin’s door, it was Renee’s. Allison went with her as she moved towards it. Her flat was small and cold in the early morning. Allison felt a hint of fear as Renee turned the key, unlocking the door. 

A grey-haired man stood there, brows knitted. “I don’t suppose you have anything to do with the Moriyamas being hacked,” he said in Japanese, his tone cold as ice. Allison was surprised she understood him. 

“The Moriyamas being what?” Renee asked, her voice calm but with an edge of feigned surprise.  _ Interesting,  _ Allison thought. 

The man sighed. “I have just been informed that the Moriyamas were almost hacked. Their security system is too good, but they didn’t have enough time to trace it back, so now they think we did it. You know what that means, right?” 

Renee blinked slowly. It had only been a few minutes since they tried to hack their phones and her boss was already at her flat, knowing everything about it.

“I know,” she said and closed the door. She stumbled towards her bed and dropped onto it, landing on her stomach.Allison laid down next to her. “What does it mean?” she asked, her breath hitching. 

“It means,” Renee started, voice muffled by her pillow, “we just started a war.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: mention of drugs, depictions of violence (fighting).

Renee had never done delivery before, yet somehow she found herself walking through the streets of Tokyo with a backpack full of the Red Sun’s gear. She had a bad feeling about this; Emi had thrust the backpack in her hands with no warning, her breathing too deliberate, as if she was trying a little too hard to sound normal. She mumbled something about it being an important delivery and suddenly Renee couldn’t back out of it. Being the boss’ adopted daughter didn’t mean she would avoid the consequences of a deal going wrong. She could have asked, but he was in a meeting and she preferred to just do it than interrupt him. 

The meeting point was down a dark alley close to her apartment. Not that anyone apart from her and her father knew where she lived. Night had fallen and it felt like gravity was pulling her down. Her feet were heavy and her eyes itched. Renee hadn’t felt this tired in a while. Maybe that’s why she only realized who was standing in front of her when he spoke. 

“Long time no see,” Riko Moriyama said and Renee could hear the smirk in his voice. 

_ You bastard _ , Renee thought. Of course Riko had set this whole thing up. “Am I supposed to be impressed?” she asked, her voice flat and stared him down.

“I couldn’t care less about impressing you,” he said and took a step closer to her. “But the police will be happy to find you here. Your backpack will be a great gift for them.” 

With a quick movement, Renee grabbed Riko by the collar of his shirt. “Do I look like I’m scared of you?”

“Maybe you should be,” Riko said, smiling with that awfully smile of his. 

Renee resisted the urge to spit on him. “This is a clear violation of our peace agreement,” she said, knowing it wouldn’t change anything. But maybe she wanted Riko to admit it, admit he made the first move on this war. 

His mouth turned into a straight line. “That’s what you get for trying to spy onto our business. Consider this a lesson.”

Renee wanted to punch him. “Consider  _ this _ a lesson,” she said and kicked at his knee. Riko fell to the ground, a cry of pain escaping his mouth, and Renee spat on him.

“Oh you’re gonna regret this,” he said while getting back up. 

Riko threw his punches with all his strength but none of them landed. For Renee, fighting was like dancing and Riko was far too angry to do this correctly. His movements were sloppy and his feet unstable. She punched him in the face and then the stomach. He doubled over but didn’t give up. Riko wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her and slamming her on the wall. Police sirens could be heard from the distance and her back was burning from the pain. 

“Tick, tock, tick, tock,” Riko said, kicking her ankles. 

Renee fell and he kicked her in the stomach. She tasted blood in her mouth. Riko kneeled before her and pulled at her hair. “You never learn, do you? The Moriyamas aren’t to be messed with.” 

But before he could hit her again, Renee raised her leg and hit him on the side of his head with all her strength. Riko fell on the ground. His eyes were tightly shut and his hands were holding his head. He was bleeding, Renee noticed. Not that she cared. 

The sound of the police sirens was getting louder. She grabbed the backpack and started running. 

  
  


Renee woke up from a knock at her door. It wasn’t too loud or too quick, just a soft knock which sounded like thunder in the quiet of the early morning. Her flat wasn’t big and with two long strides she was in front of the door, but she didn’t open it yet. The person on the other side of it knocked again; slowly, patiently. Renee started counting. Ten, that’s how many seconds passed in between the knocks and she opened the door. 

The man outside looked at her only for a split second before walking past her and into the room. He only spoke after the door had closed behind him. 

“The security cameras of nearby shops caught you running away from that alley.” 

Her father — or rather, her boss — had never been a sympathetic man. He always talked with an air of indifference and coldness, his eyes dark and distant. Renee was only ten when he took her in and for the longest of time she thought of him as her savior. But recently she had started thinking that maybe it would have been better for her to die on the streets of Tokyo alone than know in which parts of the body you could stab someone to inflict the worst possible pain before they bleed out and die. 

She didn’t hate her boss. She didn’t love him, but she definitely didn’t hate him either. He was better than other mobsters and far better than the Moriyamas. He always tried to protect his people, even in his strange way, and Renee appreciated that. 

Now, they both sat down at her kitchen table, facing each other. “It was Riko Moriyama,” she said, although she was sure he already knew that. 

“They also went to the lab,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “But there is no need to worry about that. All the information they have about you is fake.” 

Renee carefully studied him and narrowed her eyes. “So, what do I need to worry about?” 

“Stay here for a while. We will find a solution to this.” He looked at her straight in the eyes. “For now: hide.” 

He got up to leave, but Renee stood in his way. “Someone told them about the delivery. We have to find out who.” 

“We know who, but that shouldn’t concern you. We can use it for our benefit.”

He tried to walk past her again, but she grabbed his hand. He stared at her hand as if he could burn it with his gaze. But Renee wouldn’t let go that easily and when he realised that, he looked at her eyes. There was a new kind of anger boiling inside of her. She couldn’t just hide and wait for the others to help her. She couldn’t let Riko win like that. 

“What’s the plan?” she asked. 

“The plan is not getting caught,” he said and released his hand from her grip. 

_ He’s gotten old, _ Renee thought, as she looked at his white hair and the wrinkles around his eyes. She watched him go, thinking of how half-truths and vague answers made her heart beat faster and her hands itching to punch something. It’s what she was always given. Her boss was always avoiding answering her questions, never telling her what was really going on. Especially when it was about the Moriyamas. She was tired of them thinking they own everything and everyone. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Dan said, placing a hand on her shoulder. 

“Fuck hiding,” Andrew said. He stood next to her and Renee knew what he was going to say, before he did. “We’ll take them down together.”

  
  


Renee hated hiding. Being able to visit the others and be outside for a while was a relief, but it wasn’t enough. No matter how many drinks she had with Andrew at Eden’s Twilight, or how many times he raced alongside Seth, or how many exy matches she watched with Dan, it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t free, this was merely an illusion and Renee despised every moment of it. 

It had been nine days before she saw Kevin again. For her, night had fallen hours ago and she was pacing around her room, a bowl of kitsune udon in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in the other. But in New York, the sun had already risen again and Kevin was walking towards his faculty building. 

“Did you know there was a whole village in France that died of dancing?” he said, as soon as he realized Renee was walking next to him. “Isn’t that interesting? A case of mass hysteria, just like what must have happened during the Salem witch trials.” 

Renee hummed in agreement. “Interesting,” she said, her mouth full of food. 

“So, what’s up?” he asked, looking at her. His cheeks were red because of the cold morning air and he was wearing his glasses. 

“I have a plan,” Renee said. Walking alongside Kevin was nice. The campus was quiet and nearly empty at that hour and the rustling of leaves calmed her. 

“Do I want to hear it?” Kevin said and they both knew he did. 

“We’ll try to hack the Moriyamas again, but this time through the phone of their spy in our gang. Since I don’t know who the spy is, we’ll hack all our phones and then blame it on the Moriyamas. Any evidence will be leaked to the press. They have strong connections in the police and the government, but if it gets out then they’ll have no choice but to investigate and arrest them all.”

A laugh escaped Kevin. “Piece of cake,” he said. “Anything else?” 

Renee ignored the sarcasm in his voice. She ate some more of her noodles and then continued: “Yes. After that, we’ll take advantage of the chaos and hack the police, delete the video footage they have of me running away from that alley and my warrant.”

“You make it sound like it’s easy,” Kevin said with narrowed eyes. 

Renee smiled. “Everything is possible if you believe in it.”

He pretended not to notice her wink as he said, “Is that another one of Allison’s lines?”

“It’s the truth,” she replied, deepening her voice and trying to sound offended. She even placed one hand on her chest as she said it. Hanging out with Allison was making her more and more dramatic. 

Kevin stopped walking. “Okay,” he said, looking at Renee. “Let’s try it. I can’t ask the help of a couple of people I know.” 

“We can do it,” she said smiling. 

Kevin was smiling too, but his expression quickly changed. His mouth became a straight line and he squeezed his eyes shut. Both of his hands came up to press on his temples as an  _ ouch _ escaped him. 

“What’s wrong?” Renee asked, stepping closer to him. 

Kevin didn’t open his eyes. “I keep having these sudden headaches,” he said. “It’s just sharp heaps of pains coming out of the blue.” 

Before she could say anything more, he fell on the ground and the connection was lost. “Oh no,” she said, trying to find him again, but there was nothing. Renee called the others, but none of them could reach him either. She caught glimpses of an ambulance and then a doctor and Jean and a white corridor. 

They were all there when Kevin woke up again.

“I fucking hate hospitals,” Neil murmured. 

“What happened?” Kevin asked. A groan escaped his mouth as he tried to pull himself up. 

“You fainted again,” Andrew said. His clothes were wrinkled and there were black circles under his eyes.

The door opened and a doctor walked into the room. “Good afternoon,” he said. There was a small screen next to Kevin’s bed and he turned it on. Four rows of brain scans appeared. “The news isn't good, Mr. Day,” he said and Dan moved closer to the screen. She was biting her nails, Renee noticed. The doctor pointed on the first two rows of scans with his pen. “This is what a normal brain looks like,” he explained. “This is what your brain looks like.” He looked at Kevin, while pointing on the other two rows. 

Kevin narrowed his eyes, trying to get a better look at the scans. “I don’t understand,” he said. 

“You suffer from what we call UFLS, or Undifferentiated Frontal Lobe Syndrome, and we should fix that as soon as possible.” 

“Fix it?” he asked. 

The doctor took a deep breath. “We need to go in and cut away the growth.”

“Oh, no, no,  _ no _ ,” Neil started whispering. 

“You want to cut my  _ brain _ ?” Kevin exclaimed. His mouth was open and his eyes wide. 

“If we don’t,” the doctor started again, “you’ll start experiencing severe hallucinations and your mental abilities will quickly deteriorate. Your brain will slowly stop sending signals to your body and one after the other, your muscles will no longer work without technical support. That includes your heart.” 

Kevin flinched, but Renee was still watching the doctor. She could tell that something wasn’t quite right. It was both the way he talked and the way he moved. His tone was serious, but unsympathetic. He talked to Kevin more like he wanted to convince him he was dying, rather than like he wanted to help him survive. It was suspicious. 

“That’s bullshit,” Neil said, his voice way louder than before. 

Kevin turned to look at him. “Can I have a moment to think about it?” he said to the doctor. 

The man narrowed his eyes. “Your chances of surviving without this operation are below zero,” he tried and Kevin shot him a death glare. “Okay. But remember you don’t have a lot of time to decide,” he finally said and walked out of the room. 

Kevin immediately turned to Neil and Renee could see a fire in his eyes, one that he hadn’t seen before. “What did you mean?” he demanded. 

“That’s what BPO does,” he said, taking a deep breath. “You can’t let them cut your brain open. You have to get out of here, fast. They know what you are and they are going to be here soon. You have to run.” 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: graphic descriptions of violence.

It was a miracle that Jeremy still had Jean’s number. Matt had asked for it with the promise that he would explain everything to him later. Jeremy just sighed and gave it to him.

Jean answered on the second ring. “Yes?” He sounded like he hadn’t slept in a while. 

“It’s Matt.” He sat down on his kitchen table and started tapping his fingers on the wooden surface. Then he got up again and started pacing around the room. 

“What happened to Kevin?” Jean asked, his tone way more alert than what it had been a second ago. 

“He’s in the hospital. They want to cut his brain open.” 

Matt heard a crash and then, “What? Please, tell me you’re joking.” 

“I wish I was, but you have to get there. _Now_. We are trying to find a way to get him out. Neil says BPO is behind this.” 

“Who’s Neil?” Jean asked. 

“It doesn’t matter! Go to the hospital!” Matt shouted and hung up. 

Renee’s flat looked even smaller when it was filled with people. But they were all gravely silent and to Matt it felt like they were already mourning. 

“I called Jean,” he said, sitting on the kitchen counter next to Dan. Allison, Renee and Seth were sitting at the table and Neil and Andrew on the floor just under the window. “He’s heading to the hospital now.” 

Seth abandoned his chair and started walking towards the bed. “So what’s our plan?” 

Neil pushed himself up and started looking outside the window. “Kevin needs to say yes to the surgery.” 

“What?” Allison asked, her tone flat, but there was the tiniest hint of anger in her voice. 

Neil turned to look at her. “If he refuses, the doctor will know that something is wrong and BPO will be there in no time. If he pretends to cooperate, it will buy him some time.” 

“How can you be so sure about all that?” Allison asked again, narrowing her eyes.

“And since we’re at it, why is it always so difficult to see what’s happening in your mind?” Seth chimed in. 

Neil’s voice was ice cold when he spoke again. “Trust me or don’t, I don’t care. But I want to save Kevin as much as you do. We can’t leave him _there_.” 

Matt’s phone rang and everyone jumped a little. 

“They won’t let me see him,” Jean said, his voice betraying his frustration. “I _am_ Kevin’s emergency contact, but they say they can’t find my name anywhere on the system. What are we going to do now?” 

“I have an idea,” Seth said, jumping out of the bed. “But I don’t know if you’re gonna like it.” 

Matt studied him for a long moment. “I’ll call you in a bit,” he said to Jean and then gestured at Seth to continue. 

His plan wasn’t simple and it sure as hell wasn’t easy to pull off. They had never done anything like that before and Matt felt his chest tighten at the thought of one more of them might get caught. But it was a good plan, the best they had, and it didn’t take them lost to decide for it. 

Matt called Jean again and explained what they had to do. He was in charge of hacking into the cameras of the hospital and deactivating them on Matt’s signal. Kevin would agree to the surgery and that would give them the extra time they needed for Seth to get there, since he was the closest to New York, compared to the others. 

Six hours later, Seth was standing in front of the hospital. Inside, he kept repeating the layout of the hospital from the blueprints Jean had sent him. It was a busy day and as he entered the building, so no one really paid him any attention. He made his way deeper into the hospital looking for a storage room, which was way easier to find that he thought. Seth changed his clothes as fast as he could and made his way towards the third floor, where Kevin’s room was. He now looked every bit like a porter and only a couple of people looked at him weirdly, but they didn’t say anything, probably assuming he was new. 

Meanwhile, on the third floor, Kevin was being taken away. He tried to protest, he claimed he needed a little more time to think about it, but they didn’t listen. _Whatever you do,_ Neil had told him _, don’t act suspicious, act like you trust them._ He even tried to pretend he was interested in the procedure and started asking about it in great detail. But the nurses didn’t seem willing to answer. Kevin just hoped Seth found him on time. 

Seth was, in fact, running out of time. Kevin wasn’t in his room, so he assumed they had already taken him to the surgery. He sprinted to the staircases and climbed to the fifth floor, looking for their whiteboard and the operations’ schedule. It was in the middle of a corridor and Kevin’s name was written there, along with the number of the room. He started running again. 

When Kevin arrived at the operating room, they were still preparing it for him. A nurse took him to a small room next to it. 

“This will only take a second,” she said and he felt a tiny sting on his left arm. Anesthetic was now traveling through his veins and as his vision was getting blurrier and blurrier, he felt cold metal against his wrists and heard the distinctive _click_ of something locking. The nurse left and someone else entered the room.

“Don’t sleep, don’t sleep,” Neil said. “We need to get these handcuffs off of you first.”

Kevin tried to look down at his hands, but raising his head was impossible. 

“Let me,” Neil said again and he hummed. 

Neil pulled at the IV with his teeth and got the needle out. He spat it out into his left hand and twisted his hand until he could pick the lock. It wasn’t hard to open it, but he still used up time they didn’t have and Kevin was barely conscious at this point. Once his left hand was free, he started picking at the lock of the right handcuff. Neil dragged himself out of the bed, but Kevin’s body was getting heavier and heavier. 

“Seth, where the _fuck_ are you?” he said under his breath. 

At that moment, Seth was pushing the door to the fifth floor open. “Tell Jean to turn off the cameras,” he said to Matt, while running. 

“Grab a wheelchair,” Neil told him. “Kevin won’t be awake for a lot longer.” 

And Seth did. He found Kevin just outside the surgery room he was supposed to be in, leaning on the wall, trying to hold himself up. He fell on the chair as soon as he saw Seth and he was unconscious before he could say anything to him. Seeing Kevin was a relief and a weight was lifted off his chest. But they only were half-way there. Now, they had to get out of the hospital and maybe that was the hardest part of their plan. 

Seth started pushing Kevin towards the elevators. He was moving slowly, trying to not attract any unwanted attention to them and keep his face devoid of any emotion. Seth could almost see the metallic doors of the elevators, when two men, dressed in black from head to toe, stepped in front of the wheelchair, blocking his way. 

“Can I help you with anything?” he asked, in the nicest tone he could muster. 

“Hand over the patient, please,” one of them said and there was nothing nice in his voice. 

Andrew appeared next to Seth. He walked around Kevin and put himself between them and him. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said, and then Andrew attacked. 

Seth was impressed with how good of a fighter Andrew was. He moved fast and avoided most of their blows. He aimed for their legs and stomach mostly, probably not used to being tall enough to easily punch someone higher up. One of them pushed him to the wall and his body shook, and a groan escaped him. The other one punched him in the stomach and Andrew doubled over. A sharp pain erupted through his belly and breathing became harder. That was when Matt appeared. 

“Don’t worry, I got this,” he said and caught the man’s fist as he was going in for one more punch. Matt twisted his arm behind his back and a cry echoed in the hallway. He placed his other hand on the man’s head and pushed him aside. There was an awful sound as his skull collided with the wall and the man fell down.

A second later, the other man got his arm around Matt’s neck, dragging him away from Kevin and making it difficult for him to breath. Then Renee came and with an unexpected move: she doubled over, bringing the man with her over her back, and the man was thrown down onto the floor in front of her. For a second he looked disoriented and didn’t seem able to get up again. Seth’s heart was beating fast. 

“Run!” Renee shouted at him and he did. 

Once the elevator took them to the ground floor, he moved quickly towards the storage room where he had left his clothes. He threw his jacket over Kevin, hoping to hide his hospital gown. 

“Where’s Jean?” he asked Matt. 

“He’s waiting for you outside,” Matt answered and checked his watch. “You have exactly one minute before the cameras are back on.” 

Jean was waiting for them in his car and his eyes widened as soon as he saw Kevin. 

“Is he alright?” he asked as Seth placed Kevin in the back seat. 

“It’s just the anesthesia,” Seth said and jumped in the passenger’s seat. “He’ll wake soon.”

Jean closed the pc he had in his lap and started driving. “All good,” he said. “So, where to?”

Seth smiled. “Ever been to Houston?” 

  
  


Renee didn’t know how they found her, but they did. The only person that was supposed to know about her location was her boss and he had either been too sloppy or he betrayed her himself. Renee didn’t want to think about the fact that her boss was _never_ sloppy. 

It was in the middle of the night when they came. She was exhausted after everything they went through to save Kevin. The motion detector on the staircase beeped, but she was sleeping heavily and didn’t hear it. Renee only woke up when they broke her door down. She startled awake, but she was surrounded before she could even get out of bed. 

Their flashlights were blinding her and she could barely make out the dark silhouettes of six people forming a circle around her bed. That meant at least six guns were pointing at her. Renee raised her hands in surrender. She had always know a lost cause when she saw one. 

They took her at the nearest prefectural police department and as soon as she was identified, she was off to jail to wait for her trial. It all happened in less than five hours and before another five passed, Riko had come to see her. 

“This colour looks nice on you,” he said with an awful smirk in his face. He was lucky they were separated by a plexiglass, because Renee would have spat on him again. 

She didn’t answer. The bruises on his face were almost gone and his eyes were sparkling in satisfaction. 

“I hope you understand now,” he started again. “Going against us was the biggest mistake you’ve ever made. What a shame, I thought you were smart. But I guess I was wrong.” 

Renee let out a loud laugh. “The only stupid one here is you,” she said and leaned closer to the glass. “You know I’m going to take you down with me.” 

Now, it was Riko’s turn to laugh. “Take me down? You still don’t get it, do you? The police are on our side. You are messing with things you don’t understand. We are much bigger than you think and you can’t do _shit._ ” 

Renee leaned back on her chair and studied him for a moment. She first met Riko when the Red Sun and the Moriyamas made their peace deal. She must have been around twelve or so. He had always been like that; arrogant, selfish, pretentious, a kid without any sense of compassion. She could have become like that too, but everything in life was a matter of choices. 

But now, he was seriously getting on her nerves. “ _We_?” she repeated. “You keep talking like you are someone who matters, but you’re just another one of your brother’s dogs. You don’t even run this gang. Your uncle does and your brother owns him and you and everything else.”

She must have hit some sensitive nerve because Riko’s face twisted with anger. He leaned closer to the glass and looked Renee in the eyes. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he growled. 

“Oh I think I know exactly what I’m talking about,” she said with a smirk. Renee looked at her wrist, pretending to check the time in a non-existent watch. “But you’ll have to excuse me. I believe our time is up.” 

Riko’s face turned a deep shade of red, his jaw clenched, his fists balled, and his eyes threw daggers at her. She left the room with a smile and adrenaline rushing through her veins. 

Neil was waiting for her back in her cell. “Was that Riko Moriyama?” he asked as soon as she entered. 

Renee sat down on her bed and waited for the guard to leave before answering. “Yes, that was him.” 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he said and vanished. 

  
  


Neil went to Andrew. He always went to Andrew when he was upset or confused or he felt like the past was coming for him again. They sat out on the porch of his house, and Andrew lit a cigarette. The sun was setting in San Francisco and the sky had turned an ugly, watered-down orange. 

“So?” Andrew prompted. He was already at his second cigarette. 

“I saw Riko Moriyama,” Neil answered after a while. They both knew that Andrew could easily read his memories, see what he saw, but he never did. And even if he accidentally did, he always waited for the others to talk about it themselves. Andrew wasn’t a fan of peeking around other people’s minds. 

“And?” he asked again. 

Neil took a deep breath. “I’ve met him before. A couple of days before me and my mother ran away.” 

“Sounds like a interesting story,” he said, tossing his cigarette away. His expression was as neutral as ever, but there was something there, a hint of curiosity behind his eyes. 

“One day my father took me to an old building. I was ten. He said he sometimes worked there. There was a room — it looked like a lab — and in the middle of it there was a metallic bed, like the ones they have in morgues, but back then I didn’t know that. A little girl was laid on it. I don’t know if she was dead.” He took a deep breath. “I hope she was,” he whispered. “There was another man there and a kid. The kid… I know it was Riko. My father put on a white robe, gloves, a mask — he looked every bit like a surgeon. And then he started cutting at the little girl’s head.” His whole body shook at that memory. The words were flying out of his mouth faster now. “For the longest time I was frozen, I couldn’t tear my eyes away and my father kept cutting and cutting and _cutting_ and then you could see her _brain_ . I started crying. I tried to run, but the man who was with Riko held me there. _See,_ he kept saying, _see. This girl was a threat. See what happens to threats._ ” Andrew heard his breathe come out shaky and Neil’s hand found his way up to his chest, clawing at his shirt. “I think she was like us,” he said. 

Andrew’s hand hovered over the back of his neck. “Yes,” Neil said, his voice weak.

“Your father will be dead soon,” Andrew said. “We will make sure of that. _I_ will.”

Neil turned to look at him. The colour of the sky was reflecting on Andrew’s skin and hair and eyes. _Maybe it’s not such an ugly colour after all_ , he thought. The weight of his hand on Neil’s shoulder was grounding. It made him feel warm inside. “Thank you,” he whispered. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: violence, blood, guns.

Dan was walking back home when he found her. She hadn’t seen him for more than five years, but he hadn’t changed one bit. Black eyes, fair skin, shaved hair, black suit, and a gun in his hand. He walked out of a dark alley and stood right in front of her. His gun was pushed against her stomach and his fingers digged into her arm. Dan didn’t even know his name. She was going to die by someone she didn’t even know the name of. 

“If that ain’t Danielle Wilds,” he said. “I knew you reminded me of something. My boss will be very happy to see you.” 

Her throat was dry and she didn’t dare blink. “I am not going to tell anyone what I saw,” she said, her voice cracking. “I promise.”

“Of course you are not going to do something like that,” he said. “But you can’t just run away from us. We are going to teach you a lesson on respect and then Boss wants to use you.” He yanked at her arm, his nails digging deeper into it. “Come on,” he said, pulling her towards the alley. 

“No, wait!” she shouted. “I can pay you! Just let me go. _ Please _ .”

_ Help _ , she thought,  _ help, I don’t want to die.  _ Tears started streaming down her face. 

“Stop crying,” he said, pushing the barrel of the gun harder into her stomach. 

“Stay calm,” Matt said next to her and Dan almost choked. “Let me handle this.”

“Okay,” she whispered and Matt took over. 

With her free hand, he grabbed the gun and pointed it towards the sky. Then he kicked the man in the stomach and he fell backwards, losing his grip on her hand. But Matt didn’t let go of the gun and with a delicate move he twisted the man’s hand behind his back. Dan heard a crack and he screamed in pain. He fell on the ground and Matt threw the gun as far away as he could. 

“Run,” he said, and Dan ran. 

Matt only appeared again when she locked the door behind her. Her heart was still racing and the tears had returned. She kneeled down and screamed till her throat was coarse and dry. Matt kneeled next to her and waited till all the rage was let out. Dan’s heart was an open wound and the past was throwing salt on it again. 

“You have to leave,” Matt said after she had calmed down a bit. “Come to Bristol.” 

Dan buried her face in her hands. “I don’t want to leave again. I’m tired,” she said. Oh, she felt so,  _ so  _ tired.

“One day the time will come when you will stop running.”

She wanted to trust Matt so badly.  _ One day,  _ she thought,  _ one day.  _ Every part of her body felt stiff and her mouth was filled with cotton. Dan looked at him, her eyes swollen and burning, and he looked right back at her. She wasn’t sure where she ended and where he began anymore. 

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll come.” 

  
  


One morning, two guards came to Renee’s cell. One of them stepped inside and told her that her lawyers were waiting to meet her. She got up and he put handcuffs on her. They guided her to a part of the jail she had never been before. Renee walked into the room alone even though she knew there was something wrong with the lawyers. They were two, one sitting at a metallic table and the other one standing behind him. Their eyes followed her as she crossed the room and sat on the other side of the table. Renee knew all of the Red Sun’s people and she definitely hadn’t seen these two before. 

The silk of their suits shone under the fluorescent lights of the prison. But Renee didn’t think they were  _ just _ lawyers. The standing man’s stance was clearly one of someone who knew how to fight and was ready to do so. His legs were parted and steady, his back straight and his fists balled. 

The guards locked the door as soon as she sat down. Renee hid her hands under the table. “If Riko wanted to beat me up, he should have come here himself,” she said. 

The man opposite her glanced at the camera in the corner of the room before he spoke. The hum of electricity that always came from the cameras, Renee noticed, had stopped. “We are not here to... beat you up,” he said. “Seems like you've been very rude to Mr. Moriyama and now he wants you dead.” 

Renee let out a loud laugh, mostly because she had just dislocated her thumb and she needed to cover her pain. She had been practising on how to do that since she was ten. She slipped her left hand out of the cuffs she was wearing and then put her thumb back in its place. 

The man kept talking as his partner started to circle the table. “Mr. Moriyama wanted you to know that he found all your attempts of sabotage amusing. It didn't change anything of course. We're far too strong. So now you will die alone, with no real friends or family, having done nothing with your pathetically short life. He said that you deserve to die like the nobody you are.”

The other man was standing right behind her now. “I've heard that a million times,” she said. “Tell Riko to go fuck himself.”

It was almost as if this was the signal they'd been waiting for. Although, they surely didn't expect Renee to make the first move. It seemed like Riko hadn't really informed them about what they were up against. 

With a jump, she got out of her chair and sidestepped past the man just as his extendable baton collided with it. She now had the advantage of being in the corner of the room and having clear sight of both of them. The man with the baton tried to attack her again, but she avoided all of his blows. Finally, she managed to catch his hand mid-air and he tried to kick her. That's what Renee was waiting for. She took the blow, but she didn't fall. Her right hand wrapped around his leg, holding it close to her body, and her left elbow came crashing down on the side of his knee. There was an awful crack and the man fell down screaming. 

She watched the other man get up, colour drained from his face and his eyes fixed on his screaming partner, still lying on the floor. Renee kicked him in the head and the noise stopped. 

The other man had a gun and he was already pointing it at her. She slowly raised her hands in surrender. Knowing Riko, he must have ordered them to make her death as slow and painful as possible. At that moment, at least, she hoped he did. Because the man in front of her wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her right here and now, if that was what he was told to do. He made his way closer to her corner and placed the barrel of the gun right in the middle of her forehead, the coldness a harsh reminder that you cannot run away from guns. 

“May I?” Matt asked, appearing next to her. 

“Sure,” Renee said and the man in front of her narrowed his eyes at her. But before he could speak or pull the trigger, Matt grabbed the man’s wrist, spinning the gun away from Renee’s head, and then twisted his hand, until the man dropped the gun to the floor.

Renee kneeled down quickly. The discarded baton was laying next to her feet and she took it on one hand. The man looked at her, fear creeping into his eyes. Matt must have broken his wrist, because his hand was hanging limp by his side as he was backing away from her. Renee went for his knees. She hit him once, twice, three times with the baton, each hit extracting an awful cry from him. After the third hit he fell backwards, fumbling at the floor, and Renee sat on top of him, trapping his arms down at his sides with her knees. 

She started punching him and  _ oh, _ how good it felt. Her fists collided with his face, her knuckles red — she wasn’t sure if it was her blood or his. Her mind was clouded by rage and her rage wasn’t only hers, but it was Kevin’s too and Neil’s and Dan’s. 

“Renee, that’s enough!” Matt shouted next to her, but his voice didn’t reach her. Her fists kept crashing into the man’s face and the screams were all she could hear, although it wasn’t clear where they were coming from. 

“Renee!” Matt shouted again, grabbing her by the shoulders and trying to stop her hands. She looked at him as if he was the strangest being she had ever seen. For a moment, she didn’t recognise him. 

“The cameras are back on,” Kevin said, his voice coming from somewhere far away. 

Renee looked at the man lying unconscious beneath her. Her hands were red, but hadn’t that always been their colour? Slowly, carefully, she got up, her movements mechanic and alien to her. She watched herself move like this wasn’t her body. Her chair had fallen and she lifted it up again, smearing blood on its legs. When the guards came, Renee was sitting on the table, her red hands resting on top of it and her eyes an endless darkness. 

  
  


Truth felt a lot like being in the middle of a storm and anyone who had ever described it as something calm was lying. It was the taste of blood in your mouth and knives on your heart. Matt had never been good at talking about the truth. Not that he was a liar, but he had a habit of avoiding it. But everyone had the right to know. That’s why he sat down with Jeremy one day and tried to explain everything to him. They had been together for most of their lives. Matt owed it to him. 

Even though he didn’t want to admit it, Matt was very nervous about this. While he talked, he avoided Jeremy’s eyes and kept tapping his foot. They were at his flat, sitting at the kitchen table. Dan — who had landed in the UK two days ago — was making coffee. She had agreed to help him explain the situation and convince Jeremy if that was needed. Matt  _ needed _ Jeremy to understand him, to  _ trust _ him, to not look at him like he was some freak. 

But Jeremy had never treated Matt with anything but kindness. He made hot soup when Matt got sick and he always talked with him on the phone for hours when he was having nightmares. Now, he was listening carefully and his eyes were darting between Matt and Dan, a small smile forming in his lips. 

“So, that’s why you were avoiding telling me how you two met?” Jeremy asked as soon as Matt stopped talking. 

“Wait,” Matt said, finally looking at Jeremy. “You believe me?”

Jeremy let out a deep sigh. He rested his head onto his hand and studied them for a while, seemingly trying to decide on his anwer. “It’s a lot to take in,” he said eventually, and Matt’s heart almost jumped out of his chest. “But you were right about the church and you had no way of knowing something had happened there— unless you were the one behind it of course, but I don’t believe that.” Jeremy smiled. “And you keep zoning out and acting weird and I think I heard you speak Japanese the other day.” 

“Oh wait!” Matt exclaimed, his eyes wide and sparkling. “You won’t believe who I’m connected to.” 

“If it’s not someone famous, I don’t care,” Jeremy said jokingly. 

Matt smirked, feeling smug. “Jean Moreau’s best friend in New York,” he said. Jeremy’s cheeks turned pink and his eyes widened. “His name is Kevin.” 

“Are you talking about me again?” Kevin said, appearing in their kitchen and hopping onto the counter. 

“He has a god complex,” Matt said to Jeremy and Dan burst out laughing. 

Kevin narrowed his eyes at them. “Then, I assume you don’t want to know what I found out,” he said. 

Both Matt and Dan turned to look at him. 

“Just tell us,” she said. 

“Uh, what’s happening?” came Jeremy’s voice. His eyes were traveling between Matt and the spot on the counter he was looking at. 

“Kevin is here,” Matt said. 

“Oh, okay then,” Jeremy said, taking his mug and going to sit on the couch. “Let me know when whatever you’re doing is done.” He turned on the TV and flicked channels until he found an exy sports channel. 

“I like this one. I’d never thought you’d have decent friends,” Kevin said to Matt, looking over at the TV screen. 

Dan rolled her eyes with a smile and Matt scoffed. Kevin was all witty remarks and sarcasm and deep down, Matt liked it. “So, are you going to tell us what you found or not?” 

“I think I know where they took David,” he said. Kevin hopped off the counter and walked to his computer. Matt and Dan followed him into a flat they hadn’t seen before. Jean was sleeping on the couch and next to it, there were two big suitcases left open. Multiple windows and tabs were opened on the screen. He sat down on his rolling chair and started explaining what it all meant.  _ He really looks like a tech genius,  _ Matt thought. 

“Now that we have more than just the Moriyamas’ name, it’s easier to track down the documents they leave. Look,” he said, pointing at what looked like a purchase contract. “Almost six years ago they bought this old building just outside London. It doesn’t look like much, but then I found this.” He opened a new file and some kind of invoice appeared on the screen. “They hired a construction company to expand the building. But get this: they expanded it underground.” Kevin crossed his arm over his chest and turned to look at them, his old chair making a terrible noise. But he didn’t even seem to notice it. Kevin looked at them with a grin that screamed  _ I’m the smartest person in the room. _

“I have to admit,” Dan said, “your rolling chair creaking ruined your vibe.” 

Kevin shot her a death glare. “You could have focused on the fact that we finally know where David is.” 

“How can you be sure he’s there?” Matt asked and it almost looked like that’s exactly what Kevin wanted him to ask. Sometimes it seemed like Kevin could read the rest of them much easier than anyone else.

“Oh Matt,” he said, in feigned pity, “I hacked into the CCTV of the nearby buildings, of course. I saw that the night David was taken, a white van entered that building at around 4am. It all fits.” There was a wild excitement in his eyes, one that Matt hadn’t seen before. 

“Okay, so what’s our plan?” he asked, sitting back down at his kitchen table. The others joined him. 

The sound of a chair being dragged onto the floor drew their attention. Seth sat down with them. “We literally don’t know anything about that building or about the people inside it, what they are doing and what they are capable of, and you want us to just march into it?” he asked Kevin. 

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Kevin snapped at him. “I can find out more and when we are ready, we can strike.” 

“We can’t leave him there,” Dan said, her eyes fixed on the table. “We don't know what they're doing to him in there, but if they were ready to cut up Kevin's brain then I don’t think it’s anything good. We all saw him that day, at Kevin’s university. He looked _awful_.”

“We won’t,” Matt said, firmly. And then someone knocked on his door. Matt glanced over to his couch but Jeremy had fallen asleep and no one else really visited him. Matt slowly got up and walked towards the door. He approached it as if it was some kind of wild animal ready to attack him. 

Matt looked through the peephole. On the other side of his door were two women; they looked like they’d been through hell, their hair disheveled, their faces stained with dirt and blood.

Around their shoulders hung the arms of an unconscious man. 

Matt recognised the man's flame tattoos. He opened the door.


	11. Chapter 11

David looked worse than ever. Matt helped the two women carry him to his bedroom. They introduced themselves as Abby and Betsy and said they were with the Archipelago, as if that was supposed to mean anything, but Matt figured it wasn’t the right time to start asking questions. Jeremy and Abby cleared David’s wounds first and then Abby’s and Betsy’s. 

“How do we know we can trust them?” Andrew asked and Matt didn’t really know what to say. They both looked kind, but Andrew wouldn’t accept that as an answer.

Abby was only barely taller than Dan. Her curly hair touched her shoulders and matched the same shade of light brown as her eyes. She was a nurse and her accent was distinctively American. Betsy looked slightly older than Abby. Her hair was black and the bridge of her nose was covered with freckles. Her cheeks were red against her pale skin and she looked exhausted. 

“We are with the Archipelago,” they said again when they all sat down at the table. 

Dan shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we don’t know what that means.” 

Abby smiled. “Of course, David didn’t have the time to talk to you before he was taken. I’m glad you have survived that long. Clusters separated that quickly by their parents tend to fall apart.”

At their blank expressions Betsy asked, “How much do you know?”

“We know about the Moriyamas and BPO,” Matt said. “They hunt down people like us.” 

“Sensates,” Abby said. “You are sensates.” 

Matt repeated the word a couple of times in his mind. 

“And how much do you know about yourselves?” Betsy asked again. 

Matt thought about it for a while. The sun was slowly setting and the room was getting dark. Dan got up and switched on the light. “Not much,” he finally said. 

“Each sensate can give birth to infinite clusters in their lifetime,” Abby started explaining. “Each cluster is made up of eight people who are telepathically connected. I’m sure you have figured out how that works by now. The Archipelago is a network of sensates, the biggest database of information there is in the world. We’ve looked at each other’s eyes, so now we are connected. We are trying to protect people from BPO.” 

“BPO,” Betsy chimed in, “is trying to weaponise us and if they can’t do that, then they kill us. We are too much of a threat for this world when uncontrolled. They built a machine. They lobotomise us and then Whispers puts it on and he controls sensates like puppets.”

“Whispers?” Dan asked. 

Betsy let out a bitter laugh. “He goes by a lot of names. Have you ever heard of Nathan Wesninski?” 

Matt and Dan exchanged a look. “We have,” he said. 

“Stay away from him,” Abby warned. “Looking at his eyes means you’re dead. Think of him like Medusa.”

“Who told you about him?” Betsy asked in an offhand manner that didn’t fool them at all. 

“His son is in our cluster.” 

Abby shot up so fast her chair almost fell backwards. “His son?” she asked, mouth hanging open and eyes wide. “His son who ran away over ten years ago with his wife? He is alive?” 

“Traumatised surely,” Dan answered, “but alive.” 

Betsy turned to Abby with a smile on her lips. “I can’t believe David gave birth to Whispers’s son.” 

“I did what now,” came a ragged voice. 

They all jumped out of their seats, turning to look at where the voice came from. David was standing there, leaning on the bedroom’s doorframe. Betsy and Abby helped him walk to the table and Dan poured him a glass of water. 

“I’m on blockers,” he said. “So I can’t see you all.” There was something soft and tender in his voice. His frame was illuminated by the yellow light of the kitchen and to Matt it looked like he was the only one in the light, the rest of them and the house being devoured by the shadows. 

“David,” Abby tried. “You should rest a little bit more.” 

But he didn’t seem to have heard her. His eyes were fixed on Matt and Dan, but at the same time, he wasn’t really looking at them. “I saw you once,” he said, his voice cracking. “All of you. And you were beautiful.”

A lump rose in Matt’s throat and he knew that tears were forming in Dan’s eyes. He couldn’t speak, he didn’t know what to say. What could he possibly say to a man that looked so broken? How could he ease his pain? But this wasn’t just any man. This was their father and for the first time Matt felt it in his heart. 

“Tell Kevin,” David continued, “that I knew his mother. She was a good woman and she would have been proud of him.” 

Kevin kneeled in front of him. His eyes were red and his shoulders shaking. The world around them was melting away. The others came too. 

“I’m sorry I can’t see you,” David said again, pain seeping into his words. He took Dan’s hand on his own. “We’re going to take them down,” came his voice, steadier than before. “They won’t take me away from you again.” 

Renee didn’t expect to find an envelope in her bed. Inside there was a letter and a passport. It had her face on it, before she dyed her hair, but not her name. It looked every bit real. She opened the letter. There wasn’t much on it; some instructions here and there and a promise at the end accompanied by a name. I will leave no one behind. David.

Her heart started beating faster. She was getting out of that place. Renee lay down on her bed and waited. She tried not to think about how dangerous this was and she tried to ignore the uncomfortable lump that had risen on her throat. Renee was used to being left behind, to not being important, used to taking orders and not deciding for herself. It was her life. 

But now, people she hadn’t even met yet were trying so hard to save her. Save her from prison, from her life, from herself. 

At exactly midnight, the electricity went out, but no sirens were to be heard. She held her breath and opened the door of her cell. The place was silent and she tried to walk as quietly as possible. Renee kept repeating the instructions to herself. 

In the bathroom, tucked under a sink, she found a plastic bag. There was a wig inside, a mask, a black dress and high heel shoes. She paused for a second seeing them, but five minutes had already passed and she was running out of time. 

With the corner of her eye, she saw someone sneak into the room while she was putting her wig on. She quickly grabbed one of her discarded shoes to throw at him, but his words stopped her. 

“諸島,” he whispered. Archipelago. 

When she was ready, he checked his watch. “12:07,” he said. “We have three minutes before the emergency generators are turned on.”

He guided Renee towards the gates. They passed next to a couple of guards, but they didn’t seem to pay them any attention. Outside, there was a car waiting for her. It was black and it looked overly expensive. 

The guard left her there and bowed slightly. She opened the door and got into the passenger’s seat. The driver was an old man, must have been in his sixties, his hair white and his face wrinkled. 

“Who are you?” she asked. 

The man laughed quietly. “I’m the warden,” he said and turned on the engine. “Tonight, you are pretending to be my wife.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why are you helping me?” 

For a second they stopped at the outer gates, but the guards must have easily recognised the car, because they quickly opened them. Renee was out. 

“David is a very good friend of mine,” the warden explained. “He told me you are his daughter and that Riko Moriyama set you up. None of us really knew he was going to give birth to a cluster. He kept it a secret in case BPO found out. He’s one of the sensates they hate the most, you know. Always ruining their plans on the last moment. So we have to protect our kind,” he said and Renee would have sworn he winked at her. 

“So where are we going?” she asked, laughing. Happiness and relief was washing over her in waves.

“The airport, of course,” he said and reached inside his suit. The warden handed her another envelope. Inside, there was a one-way plane ticket to Los Angeles. 

Surprisingly, it was Aaron who was the first to sit down with him and ask what was going on. He knew that he had been more distant than normal, spacing out more and talking to himself. Being tired and sleeping badly wasn't anything new for Andrew, but recently it had gotten even worse. Now, he spent his nights keeping an eye on his cluster, in case anyone needed help. They all got into all sorts of trouble, especially Neil. He wasn't worried, not really. He didn't care if anyone got hurt. He just wanted to be there. Just in case. 

Aaron didn’t look happy. Then again, Aaron never looked happy. But Andrew didn’t know how to explain any of this. Both his brother and Nicky would probably think he had lost his mind at last and make him take more pills. But Andrew knew that he hadn’t, in fact, lost his mind. He wasn’t sure at first, but after everything that had happened, he had to face the truth. 

“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?” Aaron asked, his tone flat and indifferent. He was sitting cross-legged on the armchair to the left of the couch. 

Andrew was laying on the couch, his head fallen back, staring at the ceiling. He scoffed. “What’s the point in telling you?”

“I’m just trying to help you, Andrew,” came Aaron’s voice again, through gritted teeth. 

“Who said I want your help?” Andrew said, already bored of this conversation. 

He was thinking of leaving and going back to his room when Aaron spoke again. “When did you learn French?” he asked. 

For a minute, Andrew was trying to figure out when his brother heard him speak French. Not even he was sure when he did that. When talking to the others, changing languages went unnoticed. He always understood what they were saying and they understood him. He didn’t even pay attention to the words he was using. Kevin was the only one who spoke French regularly, though, when he was with Jean. So Aaron must have heard him talk to them at some point. 

“I never learnt French,” Andrew said, because it was the truth, or at least, a version of the truth.

“Then how come I’ve heard you speak it, more than once, in the last month?” Aaron asked again and Andrew realized he wasn’t getting out of this so easily. 

He tried to ignore Aaron, to pretend he had fallen asleep, but his brother pressed on. “You are hiding something,” he said. “Just tell me what it is.” 

“What are you two talking about?” Nicky asked, appearing from the kitchen. 

“I’m trying to get Andrew to tell me what’s wrong with him lately,” Aaron answered. 

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Andrew said, a little louder than he intended. He pulled himself up and faced Aaron, turning his back at Nicky. 

Aaron scoffed and Andrew narrowed his eyes at him. He always was like that. Claiming he wanted to help, but never trying to understand. Always angry and sarcastic. 

Andrew opened his mouth again, but the weight of someone sitting next to him on the couch stopped him. It was Neil, his hair brown this time and his eyes blue. “I’m not telling you what to do, but I think you should tell them,” he said. 

Andrew stared at him for a while, searching his eyes, trying to understand why on earth Neil thought this was a good idea. Aaron snapping his fingers brought him back to reality. 

“If I tell you,” Andrew said, “promise me you will believe me.”

Aaron eyed him up and down. “Promise,” he said.

Nicky came and sat next to Andrew on the couch. “We will always believe and support you,” he said. “You can trust us.” 

Andrew wanted to laugh. Trust was one of those overused words that was easier said than done. To trust someone was to lay your bleeding heart in front of them and ask them to hold it gently — to not be disgusted by the blood, but accept it as their own. It was a foolish idea, but Andrew was about to do exactly that. 

He told them about that dream they all shared, their birth, about the others and Neil being captured and helping Renee and meeting Kevin. He told them about the languages and all the things he now knew how to do, about the places he had seen and the memories that weren’t his. He told them about BPO and Nathan and David. Andrew didn’t dare look at them while he talked. The words flew out of his mouth and he tried to explain it all the best he could. But there was fear in his heart, fear that they will not understand. 

When he stopped, there was silence — the kind of silence that felt like the walls were closing in on him. 

“Andrew,” Aaron said, and Andrew had never heard him pronounce his name so softly. “I think I might know what you are.” 

Andrew looked up fast. His brother’s eyebrows were knitted and he was staring at his hands. “I had to do an assignment last semester on different theories on the evolution of the human species and one day, I stumbled into a very weird site. The people there were talking about something called Homo Sensorium. A different kind of humans living among us. Back then, I thought it was just another conspiracy theory people believed in. But… what you’re describing… is exactly what they were saying.” 

Andrew studied his face. “So, you believe me?” he asked. 

Aaron finally turned to look at him. “I believe you,” he said. 

The plan was simple. They were going to blow up the building. Kevin felt nauseous just by thinking of it. 

“What about the people who work there?” Renee asked. 

Andrew scoffed. “Let them burn,” he said. 

“Fuck off,” Allison snapped. “We can’t do that.” 

“Don’t forget about the databases,” came Matt’s voice. “Wymack said we need to destroy the blueprints of the machine.”

“Leave that to us,” Kevin said.

“Wymack?” Neil asked at the same time. 

Matt shrugged. “He says that’s how he wants us to call him.” 

“Where is he now?” Andrew asked. 

Matt checked his watch. “He should be there in a couple of hours.” 

“Kevin and I are going to go get him from the airport,” Seth said. 

“I still don’t get why he had to go to Houston,” Dan murmured. 

Matt rolled his eyes. “Abby explained it to us a million times. The UK is a small country and they have too many of their people here.” 

Kevin felt a small weight being lifted off his chest. This planning and bickering and strategising was something he liked. Not that he had ever shown that, but they probably knew. It was something normal and nothing in his life had ever been normal. They were all hanging around Allison’s balcony now. Andrew and Seth were fighting over their plan again and Renee and Allison were braiding each other’s hair. When it was time to go, a thought popped up in Kevin’s mind. They are my friends, he thought because he wasn’t ready to use any other word yet. 

The drive to the airport was nice. The sky had turned into a navy blue and soft music was coming out of the radio. Their hearts were beating fast and Seth’s hands were restless on the wheel, drumming his fingers in a rhythm that didn’t match the music. 

Wymack was waiting for them right outside his gate. A wide smile spread across his face when he saw them. 

“Your tattoos look even cooler in person,” Seth said while they were driving back. 

Wymack looked down at his arms and started tracing his tattoos with his finger. “The fires of the witch-hunts,” he said. “They are hunting us down like witches, but there’ll always be someone who will remember us. Even in another time.” 

Kevin couldn’t see his face from the back seat, but he knew it was one of a man who had lost too much too early. “Even in another time,” he echoed.

After a week of Wymack staying with them, Kevin had started getting used to it. He usually woke up earlier than the others and went running. On his way back he bought coffee for everyone. Kevin had never had to memorise someone’s coffee order before — except Jean’s maybe. But time had always been a false friend to him, and the sense of safety that came with it was nothing but an illusion. Kevin was used to having things being violently taken away from him, but that didn’t mean his heart didn’t bleed the same way each time. Time was just something that brought you closer to the end. 

They had gone out to eat with Seth on his lunch break. Iit was one of those days in Houston that the sun was a little too hot and the humidity made it even worse. Kevin felt sticky and exhausted and the trees did nothing to reduce the heat. Wymack was sitting next to him on a bench and trying to explain to them how the building in London was structured, with its separate rooms and labs and the computers’ wing, when he froze. 

For a moment, he was completely still, staring somewhere behind Seth, his expression twisted with something that looked a lot like fear. Then he started frantically searching his pockets. His eyes were wide and Kevin had never seen him panicked like that. Both him and Seth had frozen on their seats, not really understanding what was happening. But Kevin became very aware of something very quickly and his heart started beating so fast it almost felt like it would jump right out of his chest. He had never felt Wymack’s presence before, not in the way he felt with the others. Because Wymack had looked Whispers in the eye and he was always on blockers. That was a fact. Wymack was always on blockers. 

Except that, at that moment, he wasn’t, because Kevin could clearly feel his pulse on his fingertips and hear his thoughts, which all boiled down to three panicked words: he found us. 

Kevin jumped off the bench and faced Wymack, who had now found his metallic box, which Kevin knew was full of small cylindrical black pills — blockers. “What’s going on?” came Seth’s hurried voice, although he, too, must have realized what was happening by now. 

It was almost as if his voice snapped Wymack out of his thoughts and he turned to look at them, his face a mixture of fear and anger. “We don’t have much time,” he said. “Yesterday I started using the blockers I had stolen from BPO while the Archipelago was getting me out.” He briefly glanced at the box he was still holding and his jaw tightened. “They were fake,” he said. “Whispers had planted them there and he knew I’d take them. He found me and he is on his way here right now.”

Kevin and Seth remained silent. Whispers was coming for them, he knew where they lived, he knew it all and they were going to die. 

“We don’t have much time,” Wymack said again, maybe more to himself than at the others. He stared right in Kevin’s eyes. “You have to run. I can handle it. Take Jean, leave, go somewhere he won’t find you. If any of you see him, we’ve talked about what needs to be done.” 

The words echoed inside his mind. If any of you see him, we’ve talked about what needs to be done. Kevin felt his body weaken and his legs shake. 

Seth shook his head violently. “We can’t leave you to them again!” 

Wymack’s eyes were unfocused. “He is closing in. Go!” he shouted at them. 

“You’re coming with us,” Kevin said.

“No!” Wymack said, closing his eyes. “I can still hold him off my latest memories but if I come with you he’ll know where we live and where we’ll be running to. You don’t understand, Kevin. I refuse to be the one who will get you killed. Or worse.” 

Kevin kept staring at Wymack, his eyes burning and his whole body shaking. 

Seth grabbed his hand. “We need to go,” he said. 

Kevin didn’t dare tear his eyes away from the man in front of him. “We can’t leave him.”

“We’ll come back for him,” Seth tried to reassure him, but his voice was shaky and Kevin could see into his heart. 

Kevin wanted to stay and he knew Seth wanted the same, but when they saw the first car take a sudden turn and drive straight into the park, they started to run. Their car was’t far, but they had to cross the road and as they jumped on it, a black jeep passed right in front of them, almost running them over. Its windows were open and before it turned and drove into the park, Kevin saw who the driver was. And his heart stopped. 

It was a middle-aged man, with pale skin and ginger hair and Kevin looked straight into his green eyes. 

“Gotcha,” Whispers said, appearing right in front of him in the middle of the street and Kevin’s hands found their way to his eyes as he fell down screaming. 


	12. Chapter 12

**PART TWO** \- ... and starting wars.

Seth found himself running away from BPO again, this time driving towards San Francisco.

Less than an hour had passed since they left Wymack behind and Kevin saw Whispers. He had fallen down, clutching at his eyes and screaming about Whispers being inside his head. It wasn’t hard for Seth to understand what was happening. Kevin had made eye contact with Nathan and they would be as good as dead if he hadn’t knocked him out. He really hadn’t wanted to do this to Kevin, but they needed to get to his flat and run as soon as possible and he didn’t have blockers or drugs with him. So he had kneeled behind him and he placed his hand firmly on his mouth and nose. Kevin hadn’t resisted until his body forced him to; they knew what had to be done. 

As soon as Kevin was unconscious, Seth picked him up and carried him to the car. He’d called Jean on the drive back home and told him to pack their things again. Jean had been cursing in French when he arrived. 

“What the fuck happened?” Jean had asked as soon as he saw Seth carrying Kevin and no sign of Wymack. 

“I’ll explain later,” Seth had said, and dropped Kevin on the couch. He’d grabbed a bag and started throwing things inside. Under his mattress, he had hidden one small box; it was filled with the blockers Abby had given them, but there must have been less than ten pills and each lasted for almost eight hours. He shoved it in his backpack. 

“So where are we going to go now?” Jean finally asked after they’d left the city behind them and no cars were following them. 

“Andrew has a basement,” Seth said. “We’re going to San Francisco.” 

Jean was staring out of the window. He’s picked up a new habit of biting his nails. “What happens to Kevin now?” he asked and he sounded nervous. 

Seth repeated Wymack’s words. “He has to either be on blockers 24/7, but we don’t have enough of them. We have to put him in a room where nothing gives away his location and confuse Whispers as much as possible.”

“Can’t the Archipelago send us some blockers?” Jean asked, stopping his nail biting and instead turning to look at Kevin, sprawled in the backseat and sleeping peacefully. 

Seth let out a deep sigh. “After saving Wymack, the Moriyamas are really cracking down on them. They’re trying to keep communications to a minimum. Basically: they are hiding ‘til the storm passes.” 

“So how are we going to do that?”

Seth could feel Jean’s frustration. “Only one of us will come in contact with Kevin. He mustn’t know where the others are or what they’re doing. Andrew and his family speak German and his cousin’s boyfriend can send us food from Germany. If we trick Kevin, we can trick Whispers.”

Jean shook his head. “Kevin won’t believe it.”

Seth’s grip on the wheel tightened and his jaw clenched. “He _will_ believe it. He has to. If this doesn’t work, we’re as good as dead.”

Jean didn’t speak for the rest of the drive. They stopped for a night somewhere outside Phoenix and gave Kevin a blocker. They didn’t tell him where they were or where they were headed and he didn’t ask. He spent most of the night rolling around in his bed or whispering with Jean, which might have actually been a smart move, since he was sleeping on the whole ride the next day and Seth didn’t have to give him another blocker. 

They arrived at San Francisco after the night had fallen. Seth carried Kevin on his back and Jean carried their luggage. Andrew opened the door and to anyone who didn’t know him, he would seem indifferent and maybe slightly angry. But there was something under his mask of nothingness, something that Seth would name worry. 

They didn’t speak, in case Kevin was listening, and Andrew guided them to the basement. Inside, there was a bed, a desk and a small bathroom. The walls were bare and there were no windows. The only source of light in the room was a yellow light bulb hanging from the ceiling, though the light was so dim that it barely made a difference. 

Seth placed Kevin on the bed and gestured for Jean to follow him. 

“Are we really gonna do this to him?” Jean asked, even before they had finished climbing up the stairs. Seth could almost hear something break inside of him. He didn’t answer. 

Andrew was waiting for them in the kitchen, sitting at the table with two other men. Seth didn't have to think too hard to recognise that Andrew's doppelganger must be Aaron, and that the other man must be Nicky. As soon as Seth and Jean sat down with them, Aaron narrowed his eyes and pointed at Andrew. “So,” he said, “ you’re inside his head?” 

Seth shrugged. “More or less,” he said. 

“Sucks to be you,” Aaron said and got up. Andrew’s eyes followed his brother as he left the room, his expression blank as always. 

Nicky got up and brought them some water. He sat back down and his eyes started nervously jumping from one to the other. “How is this going to work?” he asked. 

Seth took a deep breath. “Our plan,” he started, “is to convince Kevin — and by doing so, convince Whispers — that we left the US. Our goal is to make him think we are in Germany, but even just making him believe we are in another continent is good. Here’s what we came up with.” He reached for his pocket and took a folded paper out. He opened it and laid it on the middle of the table for the others to see. 

Jean eyed Seth’s messy handwriting. “When did you write this?” he asked.

“When you were whispering with Kevin,” he answered. Andrew knew all about their plan, so he tried to explain it to the others, who were looking at Seth’s notes in confusion. “We have to be careful about what he hears and what he sees. You have to speak German when you’re close to the basement and we’ll try to give him either distinctly German food or food you can find both in Germany and here.” He turned to Nicky. “Andrew told me your boyfriend lives there. We need him to send us food. Neil — he’s another one of us — will also send some things, but he is kind of hiding right now, so he can’t do much.”

“And the audio,” Andrew added. 

“Oh, right. We also need him to go to a Turkish market and record how it sounds from a few meters away. Neil said it’s a convincing sound.” 

Andrew got up, opened the fridge and took a bowl of ice cream out. “Who is going to be in contact with him?” he said.

“What do you mean?” Nicky asked. 

“Only one of us will come in contact with him,” Jean said, his voice distant as he recalled what Seth had told him in the car.

“It’s either gonna be me or Jean,” Seth said. “I was with Kevin when he saw Whisper, so it makes sense that we run together.” 

“I want to do it,” Jean said and everyone turned to look at him. 

“Are you sure?” Seth asked.

Jean dragged his eyes from the table to Seth’s face. “I want to do it,” he said again, and then dropped to a whisper when Seth nodded. “I can’t leave him alone again.” 

  
  


Kevin was certain that Whispers always hid in fake rooms when he wanted to talk to Kevin. Abby and Betsy had helped them find a dozen more blockers, but they still didn’t have enough. He needed three to four pills a day to be completely protected. Time was running out and they had to find Whispers before _he_ found them. 

Kevin hadn’t seen anyone, apart from Jean, in a week. Or at least he thought it was a week. After the first time he woke up in that basement, he’d spent a while laying miserably on his bed. There wasn’t much he could do anyway. There were no books and no electronics in the room. No windows and no clocks. No distractions. Every day felt like an eternity, the hours stretched and he kept imagining the outside world as an endless night. He tried to keep track of the days that passed based on the food Jean brought him and the number of pills he took. But after a couple of days, he decided it was better if he didn’t know. It was safer that way. 

Sometimes other people came into the basement too, to clean or refill his supplies. When that happened, Jean made him wear earmuffs and a blindfold. There were times he could just about hear the people talking and Kevin always shushed them. He had the faintest suspicion that they weren’t speaking English, but he tried not to think about that at all. 

He was allowed to be off blockers only once a day, for less than fifteen minutes. He convinced Jean that they had to do it if they wanted to ever find out where Whispers was and how they could stop him. But Whispers had been a sensate for far longer than any of them had and he wasn’t just any sensate: he worked for BPO. Every time Kevin managed to see him, he was in empty rooms, windowless and clockless, just like his. The difference was that Kevin couldn’t leave. He couldn’t leave until Whispers was dead. 

Kevin only saw Whispers outside once. He was in a sunny place, looking towards the sea. There was a hill and atop it there was some kind of church or castle. Rows upon rows of boats filled the port in front of him. A small tourist train passed and on the side of it, there was a banner that read _Circuit Panoramique Notre Dame de la Garde._ Then, Whispers saw him and took a blocker.

When he described the place to Jean, Jean got very quiet. “That kind of sounds like Marseille, although I might be wrong,” he said. 

Kevin had never asked Jean about his parents, but one thing he knew is that they lived in Marseille and worked for BPO. Jean had told him about it after they had seen Wymack on campus that day. His parents never talked about their work, but before he was given to the Moriyamas, he had stumbled upon their id cards that allowed them to enter the BPO facilities. At the time, Jean had no idea what BPO even was, but he knew it was bad and he investigated it on his own. It would make sense for Whispers to be there. But he knew how this made Jean feel so he didn’t bring it up again. 

One more week passed — based on his calculations — before he saw Whispers again. He was sitting in the passenger seat of a car, bulletproof vest on and a gun in his hand. When he saw Kevin, his eyes widened only for a second and Kevin knew at once that this wasn’t something he had planned. But then Whispers smiled and Kevin felt fear overtake his heart. 

“It’s okay,” Whispers said. “We were gonna see each other soon, anyway.” 

The car was on a highway. Kevin looked outside the window, just in time to see them passing a sign. It read _San Francisco_ with big white letters. 

Kevin was back in the basement a second later. He opened the desk’s drawer and took out and quickly swallowed a blocker, before he started shouting Jean’s name. There was the sound of someone running down the stairs and Jean burst into the room, panting. He ran to Kevin and started patting him down. 

“Are you alright?” he asked. “What happened?” 

Kevin looked him in the eyes. “Please, _please_ , tell me we are not in San Francisco.”

Jean opened his mouth once, twice, but no sound came out. “I’m not supposed to tell you,” he finally managed to say, his voice hoarse and weak. 

Kevin buried his face into his hands. He allowed himself three seconds of panic. He tried to think of a plan, a way out, but a constant stream of _run, run, run_ echoed in his mind. “We have to run,” he said, moving towards the door. “Whispers has found us.” 

The others were scattered around the house. Kevin felt disoriented, running up the stairs and out of his basement. The light momentarily blinded him and a groan escaped him. 

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?”someone shouted, the voice coming from somewhere on his left. He tried to open his eyes. 

“Whispers is coming,” Jean said. “He knows where we are.” 

“ _Shit_ .” It was the same voice, though he was too disorientated to place it. “How sure are you?” he asked. _Probably Seth_ , Kevin thought.

“Very sure,” Jean replied. 

Kevin tried to open his eyes, but it hurt. There was the sound of people running and then shouting and things falling. Jean was still standing next to him. “We have to leave _now_ ,” Kevin said, grabbing Jean’s arm and blinking rapidly. 

People were coming down from the second floor, carrying suitcases and boxes. “Jean,” Seth said, “come help us.” 

Jean pushed past them to rush upstairs and grab more of their things. “What’s going on?” Kevin asked. 

“We’re leaving,” Andrew said, climbing down the stairs, carrying a big box. “This is Plan B: running away from Whispers. Help us carry everything to the car.”

Kevin hurried outside. Their cars were parked on the back of the house and he found Seth loading the trunk of a car alongside someone he didn’t recognize. His heart was beating fast. They were moving too slowly. He helped them and then they ran back inside to carry the last couple of boxes and suitcases. Jean, Andrew and another Andrew ran down the stairs but Kevin wasn’t surprised that he’d started to see double. The clone would vanish as soon as his eyes adjusted and his heart had slowed down.

“Go, go, go!” Jean shouted. “We’re ready.”

Kevin grabbed one of the boxes, but as he did so, the sound of tires squealing came from right outside the house. His whole body started to shake. He heard car doors opening and heavy footsteps heading towards the house. 

“To the back door!” one of the doubles shouted. Kevin noticed that his voice sounded different, and he was wearing a short sleeved t-shirt without the black armbands that Kevin was so used to seeing Andrew in. This wasn’t Andrew. This was his twin.

They all started running to the back of the house. Kevin was still inside when he heard the front door being kicked down. A lump rose on his throat and it felt like a hand was gripping at his heart. The only thing Kevin could think of was that door. 

He ran, faster than he ever had, and once outside, he jumped into the car with the others. Seth was ready to start the engine when someone spoke and Kevin felt like the earth split open under his feet and he started falling and falling and falling into the darkness. 

“Where is Andrew?” the twin said. 

  
  


Andrew was still inside the house. He knew that if someone didn’t hold them off, even for a few seconds, the others wouldn’t be able to escape. And they had to. They had to escape — with or without him. 

The men that attacked them were armed. But Andrew knew they weren’t going to shoot him. BPO wanted to use them, not just kill them. He counted on that.

Seth appeared next to him, just as his knee was colliding with someone’s head. “What are you doing?” he asked, something close to desperation in his voice. 

“I’m holding them off,” Andrew said, always neutral, always seemingly indifferent. 

“ _Andrew_ ,” Seth pleaded. “You have to run. We’re waiting for you.” 

Andrew didn’t dare look at him. He kicked someone in the guts. They were too many. “No,” he said. “Leave now or none of us are going to get out alive.” 

“ _Andrew_ ,” Seth tried again. 

“There’s no time,” he said. “Make sure nothing happens to Aaron and Nicky, or I’m going to find you and kill you myself.” 

“We can’t just leave you behind!” Andrew heard a crack in Seth’s voice. 

Andrew kept fighting. There was the taste of blood in his mouth and his knuckles were bleeding. “I can’t hold them off for much longer,” he said. 

Seth disappeared. Andrew’s heart was racing and his legs shook. _Run,_ he thought, _run, run, run._ There was a sharp pain on his arm and for a second, he thought someone had stabbed him. He looked down to see a small dart sticking out of his arm. A sleeping dart, he realized. He pulled it out, but the damage was already done. Andrew fell to his knees and he saw some of the men he was fighting run towards the back yard. His body felt heavy and he barely registered the fact that there were people kicking him. 

The last thing Andrew heard was someone laughing.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this <3 Find me on [tumblr.](https://trans-megumi.tumblr.com)


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